A universal truth

It has been over a year since my Grandmother passed away. It has been over a year since I began toying with this idea of creating a documentary about her legacy. It has been over a year since people began to share how the transmission of trauma applies to them, to their stories and to their lives. In the beginning I pitched the idea of a film about the generational impact of trauma to my family and close friends, most of whom responded enthusiastically. They were incredibly supportive of the idea and conversations about how exactly the transmission of trauma and PTSD had manifested within the context of the situation I was going to be examining - my own family and the Holocaust. But then I began to share the idea to a wider audience and that was when I began to understand how truly universal this idea of passing on trauma is. There was the woman who told me about her husband’s experience as juvenile judge and the kids that he was supposed to sentence for their crimes. She told me about the work he did with those he felt could be rehabilitated and how nearly every single kid that stepped into his courtroom had experienced some sort of trauma or had parents who came from traumatic circumstances. There were the people who opened up about their own experiences being children of parents who had survived abuse or had served in war. And then there was the one that stopped me in my tracks.

I was traveling alone in Iceland and had just gone on a day of touring with four young people from New Jersey. We had sat down for dinner and were discussing each of our lives back home in the States. When I explained that I had just quit my job and was going to be working full-time on this project, one of the women began to tell me her own story as a descendant of trauma. She began to tell me about her grandmother’s childhood and how her great-grandfather had been abusive. She told me how he was an incredibly mean person who hurled insults and rage in the direction of her grandmother. Then she told me that he was a Nazi. No, this was not an exaggeration - he was a Nazi who had served in the SS. He was a Nazi who was serving Hitler’s cause while that same cause caused the horrific torturing and murdering of my own blood. Her openness took me aback. I was surprised how willingly she was able to share her own family’s dark and shameful history. There is no equivocal trauma.  I can’t fathom what it is that my grandmother experienced and I am in no way equating that with what this woman’s grandmother experienced, but at the end of the day trauma is universal and the transmission of trauma is inescapable.  In “Haunting Legacies” Gabriele Schwartz, who grew up in post-war Germany, examines the transmission of trauma, She looks at both the descendants of victims and the descendants, like herself, of perpetrators and finds a lot of similarities in the way that the trauma is passed on to future generations.  Both sides of this particular traumatic event, both those who initiated the trauma and those who were victims of it, left a legacy of trauma for their descendants. What this tells me is that trauma is universal.

The type trauma, the extent of the trauma and the circumstances surrounding the trauma may differ, but trauma in and of itself is inevitable. Each one of us experiences trauma and the way that it affects us and our descendants is a universal exploration.

I’m so excited to take you all on this journey with me as I continue to learn about my grandmother, about my father,  about myself and about humanity. More updates soon.