L'Dor V'Dor: Second Generation Project

L'Dor V'Dor means "from generation to generation." This idea of transmission of faith, knowledge, and experience from one generation to the next has been central to the survival of Judaism in the face of thousands of years of challenges.

Since the 1940s, survivors of the Holocaust have faced the daunting task of telling their children and then grandchildren about their experiences. Some chose to nothing or almost nothing about what they went through.  However, for the children of survivors, the experiences of their parent or parents is of vital interest and the process of how information was passed on is an important aspect of preserving knowledge about the Holocaust.

How did parents, who wanted to protect their children from knowledge of the extent of Nazi atrocities, deal with their children's asking about the number on their arms or the nightmares and screaming in the night? How did the parents respond when asked by their children why they had no grandparents or other relatives? What did the children understand about their parents' experiences? How did their understanding evolve as they grew older? How have the children, now middle-aged, transmitted their understanding of their parents' experiences to their own children? What effect has their parents experiences had on them and their lives?

By conducting oral history interviews with children of survivors, the Second Generation Project will create an archive dedicated to allowing serious scholars to test the tentative conclusions about this transmission of knowledge concerning the Holocaust already put forth and to explore whether there were any unique elements to this process in Riverdale and the surrounding communities.

We plan to begin interviews in the spring of 2010. If one or both of your parents are or were Holocaust survivors, and you are interested in volunteering to be interviewed or for more information, please email Martha Frazer at Martha.frazer@manhattan.edu