I watched a programme on the History Channel the other
evening featuring newly discovered film of Holocaust victims. We have, of course, mostly seen it, or its
like, before if we watch that
particular channel and so feelings are blunted.
It’s not quite as easy to be disturbed by the horrifying content as it
once was.
Nevertheless, I was taken aback by the tale of a young
woman, forced to strip naked at Babi Yar and kneel in a ravine with hundreds of
others waiting to be shot in the head.
She was one of the lucky survivors and somehow or other when hours had
passed, disentangled herself from the bodies about her, climbed out of the
gargantuan grave and after the war began to live her life once more – normally,
it appears.
I could not help wondering how she did so and what
nightmares lay in wait for her. How did she cope with the infiltrating memories
of her unspeakable ordeal and suffering?
Then I began to wonder what makes some people more than capable of
handling indescribable trauma. What
gives them the strength to adapt and consider themselves lucky to be living –
whilst others seek counseling because their parents did not pay them enough
attention for their liking, perhaps because a career structure claimed the
larger part of their focus and the quality time just didn’t cut the
mustard. One middle aged man noted
recently, with a great deal of bitterness and anger, that during his childhood and adolescence his mother
had been far too smothering to be ideal whilst his father was largely absent on
account of work commitments. To add
insult to injury, as helpless infants he and his siblings had been immunized against
killer diseases totally without their consent!
It was difficult to know how to respond.
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