Aaron Hass – författare

'The most important event in my life occurred before I was born,' one child of concentration camp survivors has observed. The Holocaust did not end with the liberation of survivors after the collapse of the Third Reich, for the legacy of their suffering extends to a generation that never faced an SS storm- trooper. With a rich blend of oral history, memoir, and psychological interpretation, Aaron Hass deepens our understanding of the price of that legacy for the second generation. What are the effects of growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust? Drawing on interviews and survey materials, Aaron Hass provides a vibrant account of the experiences of survivors' children. Now in their thirties and forties, these men and women describe their relationships with their parents and offer their perceptions of the impact of the Holocaust on their families. They give voice to memories and feelings about which some of them have never spoken before. Himself a child of survivors and a distinguished clinical psychologist, Hass writes about the lingering presence of the Holocaust in his own life as well.

The Aftermath offers a perspective of how one who has lived with terror for years is able to avoid paralysis and move forward. It is a book about how people live with gnawing doubts and uncertainty concerning their past actions and inaction. It is a tale of the anguish they feel because of their first hand knowledge of the evil in their fellow human being which so unjustly struck and deprived them of what was rightly theirs. For a while the Holocaust survivor seems, in most ways, to be like you and I, they are also aware of their subterranean world which may afflict them without warning. The Aftermath offers the most comprehensive examination of the psychological impact of the Holocaust on survivors ever undertaken and covers the widest range of topics including: survivor guilt, the absence of mourning, the psychological characteristics of survivor families, a survivor's view of God, survivor's feelings about Germans as well as their own countrymen of origin, and the survivor's ongoing sense of vulnerability.

'The most important event in my life occurred before I was born,' one child of concentration camp survivors has observed. The Holocaust did not end with the liberation of survivors after the collapse of the Third Reich, for the legacy of their suffering extends to a generation that never faced an SS storm- trooper. With a rich blend of oral history, memoir, and psychological interpretation, Aaron Hass deepens our understanding of the price of that legacy for the second generation. What are the effects of growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust? Drawing on interviews and survey materials, Aaron Hass provides a vibrant account of the experiences of survivors' children. Now in their thirties and forties, these men and women describe their relationships with their parents and offer their perceptions of the impact of the Holocaust on their families. They give voice to memories and feelings about which some of them have never spoken before. Himself a child of survivors and a distinguished clinical psychologist, Hass writes about the lingering presence of the Holocaust in his own life as well.