Survival and dealing with the holocaust-trauma in a sample of literary works of Jewish writers

Studying 12 books of Jewish authors who have survived the Holocaust two que stions are examined: (1) What reasons do the authors give for their surviva l. (2) What are their personal problems that developed from their survival. The answers reconstructed from their works, which were read with biographi c data in mind, are connected to the results of research focussing on traum a and salutogenesis. It is assumed that they own a high degree of validity and expressiveness for the questions posed. Next to external circumstances such as length of imprisonment, kind of assigned work, individual character istics of the prison guard, and coincidence these are: extreme vigilance, t otal adaptation to the circumstances, avoidance of emotions, denial, constr iction of reality, and existing positive object relations, help, the will t o survive and hope. For the time after the Holocaust the authors in general speak of the impossibility to forget and to integrate their traumatic expe riences into their self. Their motivation to write arose from the wish to t estify, to show the uniqueness of their fate and to act preventively in reg ard of the future.