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What Older Holocaust Survivors Teach Us
about Forgiveness Harriet L. Cohen, PhD, LCSW
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Images of Forgiveness
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Forgiveness
•  Emerged as theme in previous
research and prior practice
experience
•  Funding from Hartford –
Forgiveness of Older Holocaust
Survivors
•  Funding from Templeton
Foundation - Forgiveness,
Resiliency, & Survivorship with
Older Holocaust Survivors
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Forgiveness
•  Developmental task of Aging
-Engaging in life review -Ego integrity vs. ego despair
•  Limited research on
experience/outcomes of
forgiveness with older adults
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Rationale – Holocaust •  Holocaust survivors (1945-2009) 65+
•  52,000 oral histories through Shoah, but
no researcher intervention or discussion
of forgiveness
•  Oral histories, autobiographies, and
Holocaust museums end their stories
with liberation (1945)
•  No data on experience of forgiveness
with Holocaust survivors as they have
gotten older
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The Final Solution – Plan to annihilate the
Jewish people ©2009 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved.
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Definition of HS
•  Holocaust survivor – anyone
who self identifies and who
lived in any country
occupied and dominated by
Germany from 1933-1945
•  Holocaust survivors 60s-90s
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Survivors
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Not homogeneous
Pre-war, war, and post war
Coping strategies
Family experiences
Share trauma, loss and pain
Survived and rebuilt lives
Needs are diverse and complex
Decision makers
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Specific Aims
To explore stories of survivors to describe:
•  experiences, perceptions, feelings and
beliefs about forgiveness
•  underlying themes that account for the
experience of forgiveness •  how Holocaust survivors make
meaning of their lives
•  factors that prompt/inhibit forgiveness
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Definitions of Forgiveness
•  Psychological
•  Jewish
•  Christian
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Forgiveness: Psychological
•  a personal/interpersonal process of
change, evolves over a lifespan, entails
making a choice to forgo retaliation
(interpersonal)
•  overcoming negative affect and judgment
toward the offender, not denying the right
to such affect and judgment, but
endeavoring to view the offender with
compassion/love
•  focus on the benefits of forgiveness for
the forgiver and the role of forgiveness in
the therapeutic and healing process
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Psychological
• “Forgiveness does not
change the past, but it
does enlarge the
future.” Paul Boese
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Examples of Popular Books
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Forgiveness: Christian
•  Christian Scriptures and the teachings of
Jesus link interpersonal and divine
forgiveness; focuses on God’s
unconditional love and atonement, which
leads the believers to forgive others; •  Christian Scriptures consistently relate
forgiveness to God's forgiveness; God
always plays the leading role in
forgiveness (Rubio, 1986).
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Forgiveness Jewish: G-d & Humans
•  Hebrew word for forgiveness
is teshuva
•  Teshuva translated as
repentance; Literal meaning is
“return to”
•  Return to what? Return to the
relationship with G-d and
renew the covenant with G-d ©2009 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved.
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Jewish: Human to Human •  Process: recognize wrongdoing,
express remorse, desist from
offensive behavior, make
restitution and request
forgiveness from their victims •  Only the victim has the right to
forgive ©2009 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved.
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Jewish: Unforgiveness
In Judaism, recognition
that some offenses are to
severe to forgive even
before the Holocaust ©2009 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved.
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Spiral of Forgiveness
Confession
Recognition
Restitution
Remorse
Changing
behavior
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Research Design
•  Interviewed 7 in preliminary study
•  Face-to-face in depth interviews
using open ended questions
•  Sample – recruited participants
through Dallas Holocaust Museum
and the Fort Worth Jewish
Federation
•  Audio and video recorded
•  Narrative and phenomenology
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Data Collection
Ask older adults to tell their
stories •  life before the Holocaust
•  life during the Holocaust
•  liberation time
•  how they rebuilt their lives from
1945-2007
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Data Analysis
• 
• 
• 
• 
Read transcripts
Constant comparison
Identify common themes/meanings
Integrate themes into a composite
description of the lived experience •  Attention to personal, interpersonal,
sociocultural, and structural
•  Audit trail, triangulating data,
collaborative research, peer
debriefing and controlling for
researcher bias
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Review transcript
•  What themes about forgiveness
emerge?
•  What takes you by surprise?
•  How does J.’s interview add to
your understanding of the
experience of forgiveness for
older HS?
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Themes
1.  Relationship with G-d
2.  Finding alternatives to
forgiveness
3.  Adaptive capacity
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1. Relationship with G-d
Turning Away from G-d
•  “I had a relationship with God
when I grew up in the Netherlands,
but I don’t have a relationship now.
Why did He let all the Jewish
people be killed off? My Jewish
religion now has nothing to do with
G-d.”
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Continuing Relationship
•  “I talked with G-d during
the Holocaust and said
things I could not say to
anyone else and I still talk
with G-d”
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Seeking G-d’s Forgiveness
•  “I made a deal with G-d? ‘Dear
G-d, there was a time in my life,
that if you would have come
before me, I would have
murdered you…Then I asked G-d
for forgiveness. ‘Dear G-d,
forgive you if you forgive me.’”
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2. Finding Alternatives Defining boundaries:
•  “The Germans had a program where they
brought back citizens…in 1992 … I was
picked as the speaker for the United
States and I said, ‘We appreciate what
you have done, and you’ve extended your
hand in friendship. Maybe someday we
will be able to forgive you, but we’ll
never forget.’”
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Foregoing revenge
•  [Do you still want to get
revenge?] “ No, no…. Through
revenge, I don’t think I would
be able to accomplish….I think
the best is through education.
The best thing is to educate”
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Bringing Justice
• 
“I cannot forgive
somebody [who] killed
my parents. I brought
them to justice.”
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3. Adaptive Capacity
Living an ethical life
•  “proving that Hitler was
wrong.” •  “Germans lost their moral
compass.” •  “Making a contribution.”
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Meaning Making
•  “Because at this age anything can happen
to you any time And I am totally
prepared for that. I have lived my life.
It’s really, except for the Holocaust and
what happened to my family it has been
a good life.” “Every day is a gift, so …
you look at things that you thought were
important and they’re really not
important.”
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Valuing Family
•  “ have 3 children who love
each other… all married
within the faith…6 healthy
grandsons who also love
each other. What more can
I ask for?” ©2009 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved.
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Conclusions
•  Theological/psychological
definitions of forgiveness fail to
explain the complexity or
ambiguity •  For HS, lives derive meaning
through bearing witness by telling
stories so memories of loved ones
and the atrocities of the Holocaust
will not be forgotten
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Conclusions cont.
•  Salient sociocultural, historical,
personal factors and post
Holocaust experiences
influence adaptive capacities of
older HS •  Living ethical and moral lives
means Hitler did not win ©2009 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved.
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“I never give up
my hope; I never
give up my belief;
I was always
positive I would
survive. Those
things kept me
[and keep me]
going.”
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About the Presenter
Harriet L. Cohen, PhD, LCSW, is an Associate Professor of
Social Work at Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth.
She previously served as Director of the Social Work Program at
the University of North Texas and on the School of Social Work
faculty at the University of Georgia. Prior to teaching, she
worked for 26 years as a social work practitioner, serving as
Executive Director of the Atlanta Alzheimer’s Association and
as clinical social worker and supervisor at Jewish Family and
Career Services in Atlanta and Tampa Jewish Family Services.
Dr. Cohen is a Hartford Social Work Faculty Scholar, and her
research topic is forgiveness with older Holocaust survivors. ©2009 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved.
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For more information . . . Please visit the NASW Web site at
www.socialworkers.org/agingconference
©2009 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved.