Ynet News - Jan. 26, 2006
According to new study, sexual abuse traumas have greater
effect on survivors than any other experienced during Holocaust years. 'Abuse
still causes incessant thoughts, nightmares,' researcher says Ahiya
Raved
A new study conducted at the Haifa University reveals
that Holocaust survivors who suffered sexual abuse during World War II were
much more traumatized by molestation than by any other of the horrifying
experiences they went through during that period.
The study, the first ever to focus on the subject,
is set to be presented next Sunday in the framework of a conference to mark
the international Holocaust Memorial Day at the university.
Prof. Rachel Lev-Wiesel, who conducted the research,
said that although the survivors experienced other traumatic events during
the holocaust, including the loss of parents, physical abuse and hunger,
the memory of sexual abuse remained etched in their minds more than anything
else.
"This abuse still causes incessant thoughts on the
subject and nightmares," Lev-Wiesel said.
'Survivors told stories with clarity, precision'
The study consists of interviews with 22 men and women
in Israel and the United States, who were willing to share with the researcher
stories about the abuse they underwent during the war.
Lev-Wiesel said that some people who offered to take
part in the study were rejected, because she believed they would not be able
to cope with the burden of memories and the self-exposure involved with the
interview.
The average age of the interviewees stood at 68 years,
and Lev-Wiesel said all have told their story with clarity and precision,
in contradiction to how people usually speak of a traumatic event.
This is proof, Lev-Wiesel said, that the survivors
retell the story in their heads over and over again, reliving the past
daily.
All the survivors interviewed for the study have spent
the war years on the run from the Nazis, some at hiding in the houses of
Christians, others moving from place to place with the partisans, an easy
prey for menacing adults along the way.
According to Prof. Lev-Wiesel, this fact does not eliminate
the possibility similar incidents took place at ghettos as well.
Abuser usually close to victim
In some of the cases revealed in the study, the abuse
was carried out by relatives or other Jews, which alleviated the trauma and
embarrassment among survivors.
In one of the cases the abuser was a man who helped
smuggle children from one place to another, in another it was a father who
sexually abused his daughter, and in several other incidents – mothers
who molested their sons.
Prof. Lev-Wiesel stressed that situations of stress
and war do not create pedophiles, but that they enable such people to operate
more freely.
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