By i24news

Adult children of Holocaust survivors are more concerned about the threat of a nuclear Iran than those whose parents were not survivors, a new Israeli study shows.

The main gate at the entrance Auschwitz in Poland – Photo: AFP

“Transmitting the Sum of All Fears: Iranian Nuclear Threat Salience Among Offspring of Holocaust Survivors” is a study written by Dr. Amit Shrira of Bar-Ilan University. It was published in the journal “Psychological Trauma,” an American Psychological Association journal dedicated to the study of trauma and its aftermath.

Second-generation Holocaust survivors show higher levels of preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear threat and are more sensitive to nuclear threat in general, the study shows.

According to the report, second-generation Holocaust survivors had a more gloomy outlook on the world in general.

Some 106 people were included in the study, with 63 born after World War II ended in 1945 and whose parents lived under a Nazi or pro-Nazi regime and a comparison group of 43 people also born after 1945, but whose parents, of European origin, either immigrated to Israel before the war or fled to countries that were not under Nazi occupation.

The study was then carried out on an identical second sample of 450 people (300 second-generation Holocaust survivors and 150 comparison participants) and gave the same results.

“In second generation survivors we most often see that they are a group with resilience and mental resources, and they generally exhibit good functioning on a daily basis,” Shrira said in a statement. “But they do have vulnerabilities which can be manifested during times of stress.”

View original i24news publication at: http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/society/67831-150415-children-of-holocaust-survivors-more-anxious-about-iranian-threat-study-shows