By: Stephen C. Sanders
March 21, 2019 12:20pm
I had never heard this term "Hidden Child" used before I was in my mid 20's. Yet an essential truth of how I have always viewed myself, at my core I am a child of a Hidden Child survivor of the Holocaust. There is no ignoring the situation going on with regard to Russia's war on Ukraine. My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine who have left Ukraine (often with hopes of returning) and I have heard there are as many as 10 Million people being forced out of their apartments, their homes by Russia's shelling often on residential apartment buildings in major cities.
As a child of a hidden child my personal point of view is that the United States and NATO should have been a lot more proactive as opposed to sitting idly by while the Russian superior arsenal bomb the hell out of residential areas. It's a true humanitarian crisis.
Now, what does it mean to be hidden child survivor of the holocaust and secondly what does it mean to be a child of hidden child?
I wanted to site a book that was mentioned in by the founder and facilitator of a holocaust second generation group that I attended. he mentioned this book, I found this short explanation on a amazon site where the book is currently being sold:
"As the children of the Holocaust reach adulthood, they often need professional help in establishing a new identity and self-esteem. During their childhood their parents have unconsciously transmitted to them much of their own trauma, investing them with all their memories and hopes, so that they become 'memorial candles' to those who did not survive. The book combines verbatim transcriptions of dialogues in individual and group psychotherapy sessions with analyses of dreams, fantasies and childhood memories. Diana Wardi traces the emotional history of her patients, accompanying them on a painful and moving journey into their inner world. She describes the children's infancy in the guilt-laden atmosphere of survivor families, through to their difficult separation from their parents in maturity. she also traces in detail the therapeutic process which culminates in the patients' separation from the role of 'memorial candle".
A link is provided below if you care to buy and read the book.
You can find brief excerpts from the above link:
I also identify with some of what my mother did go through being a hidden child (roughly from 4-10) exact dates are actually unknown, even to this day.
I have often viewed myself as someone deliberately going through self-denial. In my life I had obtained several relatively high level of accomplishments. These include AA in Biological Sciences, BA Hofstra University, HS Science Teacher, Advertising Sales, Job Developer, Website Developer and Writer. I've lived in many different places in California and the New York area and currently in North Carolina.
My feeling that I was on the sideline looking in, was always part of how I viewed myself for my entire life. I often start various projects, yet rarely keep up the sustained effort to produce the desired for result of all my hard work. Or why, even if it did work would only yield some small materialistic gain.
Then, I start developing an entire dialogue (or excuse) that explains why it did not work, or could not work. As a matter of fact, there often is some element of self-sabotage, that prevents me from succeeding. It's been there all the time. It's something I must break through even as I attempt to do more than I have done before.
I also feel as if for most of my adult life, I have not spoken up when I should have. In other words there always was this need to "throw people off my trail" so they wouldn't know I was Jewish. In many ways my genetic heritage in addition to my emotional inheritance, has set me up to be minimalist, who's primary goal is simply to survive. However, life should be so much than simply surviving.
It is as if there is some voice within trying to tell me, I must remember what people are capable of doing and use a strategy, that my own mother learned in her formative years. I had to remember that I had to something to hide (like my mom as hidden child had to do, to survive)- a part of me that should not be seen. I also learned her evasiveness to actual questions, her general avoidance of questions in general. In fact somehow on my own, questions altogether were to be avoided. Since receiving questions were bad, I also avoided relevant asking questions. It's as if I have been anti-socialized. Somehow being a minimalist who's primary goal was simply to get through life unharmed, was a part of me.
In my mind, I too often look back on the way things went down in the past. How things could have been different (usually for myself and others) had things gone differently with my choices and direction. Yet I imagine this must some part of everyone's story. In many ways at this very moment, as I write down these words,I feel conflicted, should I be sharing these words? Or would better if everyone did not know these feelings you have, or know about your being a second surviver.
Yet as an adult of a mature age, I need to remember that what has transpired in the past, brought us to where we are today. I have to cut this story short because writing these thoughts down for the entire world to see, is activating the part of that is already saying that I have already shared too much about myself.
Stephen C. Sanders
Tuesday March 22, 2022
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