The Third Generation and the Holocaust in Film

This program’s original recording transcript is below. This transcription was created automatically during a live program so may contain inaccurate transcriptions of some words.

Ari Goldstein: I'm Aari Goldstein Senior Public programs producer at the museum Jewish heritage living memorial to the Holocaust and it's a pleasure to welcome you to today's program on the third generation and the Holocaust in film.

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Ari Goldstein: we're very grateful to the battery park city authority for the generous support of today's program and so much of what we do here at the museum.

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Ari Goldstein: We hear it to discuss the subject with three experts each from a different perspective.

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Ari Goldstein: Our moderator is Dr he read kelson a clinical psychologist and researcher and the daughter to Holocaust survivors.

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Ari Goldstein: you read isn't adjunct professor at Columbia University in the sheep university, a member of the American Academy of experts on traumatic stress and the co chair of trauma working group.

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Ari Goldstein: an NGO committee on mental health and consultative relationship with the United Nations welcome here we.

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Irit Felsen: Thank you.

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Ari Goldstein: alexa carolyn's key is a German Jewish filmmaker and the granddaughter of survivors and.

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Ari Goldstein: alexa directed produced and edited the documentary oma and Bella which follows her grandmother oma and her grandmother's best friend Bella two very different women who share the trauma of the Holocaust.

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Ari Goldstein: More recently alexa co created co wrote and produced a hit netflix series unorthodox we hosted alexa for a program last year called inside unorthodox and honored to have her back welcome alexa.

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Ari Goldstein: hi and, last but not least know my mom is an Israeli filmmaker and actress she made her directorial debut in 2010 with oil mama.

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Ari Goldstein: which follows her grandmother fear a Holocaust survivor and she tells her escape from Europe with her caretaker and caretakers dollar now has also directed homecoming and start in children at the fall know we're glad to have you here welcome.

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Noa Maiman: To be a thank you.

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Ari Goldstein: As you read alexa and know explore today's discussion, please feel free to share questions in the zoom Q amp a box and we'll get to as many as we can, towards the end of the hour together without further ado welcome again you read feel free to get started.

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Irit Felsen: Thank you very much, and thank you know and alexa for joining us for this program and so glad that we were finally able to do that, after our.

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Irit Felsen: Unexpected thing that caused a small delay in the program, so I will start by quoting my very close friend and mentor from Yale university very loud, who was in self a child survivor of the Holocaust.

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Irit Felsen: Who said that for us, children of survivors we viewed the world and view the world from the vantage point of a catastrophe that ravaged our family that was the beginning for us, the second generation a certain awareness.

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Irit Felsen: From very early on, from the time we cannot use only identify where we knew, and we were aware of the atrocities that our parents suffered and the loss of our relatives our extended family.

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Irit Felsen: 3G which is your generation have a very different experience.

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Irit Felsen: They did not, or you did not.

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Irit Felsen: You are not exposed to what another second generation same rosenbaum poured secondhand smoke, you are not exposed to that secondhand smoke, you are not exposed to work.

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Irit Felsen: Yolanda gameplay my colleague from Israel calls the radio active emission of the pain of the Holocaust in the from the from the survivor parents.

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Irit Felsen: And for you the departure point is not so much that, as it is the loss of connection to the little stories the little vignette the little facts for you the the departure point is more the loss of the connection to the past into the people populated it.

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Irit Felsen: So it's more about fragments that cannot be fragments in your way of life in your character in your looks that cannot be that that cannot be connected with the people that are parents, new and.

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Irit Felsen: And that are gone so you created your documentaries your two very different and very, very moving documentaries which, which are the Center of this program.

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Irit Felsen: and which, I hope, people can view those of the audience who haven't used them will be able to view them after our program, we will only show a very tiny, tiny short vignette of each as part of our discussion so Ali if you wouldn't mind, could you please show the vignette from know as.

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Irit Felsen: documentary please.

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The grandchildren stills coaches my soul, when he died, I was 11 years old too young to take care of him at the hospital, but at the exact same time of his death.

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without knowing it, I felt an intolerable sharp pain, like a knife stabbing the heart, but still granted left this world with a smile on his face surrounded by his two kids and wife loved and hugged based five grandchildren and the whole chevy and the makeup as low as a second Hello.

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yeah.

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sounds good.

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Coca Cola Coca Cola.

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Ari Goldstein: While she's logging back on we'll put up a clip from alexa carolyn skis oma and Bella.

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Yes, movie theater says he's been so good.

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allison typist in medan give all my name is Alice ish me.

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Please stop please stop.

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Ari Goldstein: These are both such beautiful tributes to your grandmother's let's start with a question that they know you read has, which is to explore with each of you, when you set out to create these films what was most important to you.

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Ari Goldstein: What did you what were you hoping for, in the outcome let's start with you alexa and then go to know.

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Alexa Karolinski: And the question was.

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Ari Goldstein: What could I hope the outcome to.

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Ari Goldstein: Be you know what did you want to do with the film What did you set out to make.

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Alexa Karolinski: Well, I made this film and context of studying documentary filmmaking and it was my thesis film and I think you know the project at the time, started as a cookbook.

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Alexa Karolinski: Just because I couldn't cook and I really wanted to preserve all their recipes and learn how to cook and then that kind of started into me filming them a little bit of part of film school and I showed people clips of them and.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know it's one thing if it's your own grandmother and it's another thing when you see other people react to the person you're shooting and.

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Alexa Karolinski: It just became really clear, I mean, first of all that they love the camera especially Bella the woman at the Gray hair they really love the camera and it sort of became the perfect vehicle to.

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Alexa Karolinski: Learn and capture and capture their story, and then the the deeper reason is also because you know I grew up in Germany, and it was really important for me, the idea that.

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Alexa Karolinski: I always thought in school, when we learned about the Holocaust and in Germany, you learn about it a lot but it's, of course.

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Alexa Karolinski: The grandchildren of mostly perpetrators and if you're a Jew in school you're one of very few most likely.

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Alexa Karolinski: And I always felt that if people could meet my grandmother, they would be they could feel closer to history to our version of history, you know, to the one of the survivors and their and their children, so I think partly.

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Alexa Karolinski: I have this wish that people could you know meet them on a really, really human basic level and not through.

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Alexa Karolinski: Just what they went through, and not just through the horrible things that happened to them, but actually also through you know some lightness and beauty and laughter and you know really approachable basically to others.

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Ari Goldstein: No, what about you.

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Noa Maiman: When I started filming the movie I wasn't entirely sure where i'm going.

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Noa Maiman: That the nephew of the woman who saved my grandmother came to Israel for our righteous indignation ceremony to acknowledge is empty that she's the reason we're all here.

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Noa Maiman: And they knew that they're coming in three days and if i'm not going to shoot it it's going to be gone so I just to those three days, and then I almost kind of collapse, it was a bit of a.

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Noa Maiman: mini break down after three days of shooting my family and my father will go and talk about it later, but.

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Noa Maiman: My father was really afraid of them were going to kill my grandmother with making your talk about that, and it was very, very intense.

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Noa Maiman: And after just three days and just put it aside and he didn't touch it in a few months after I started a production company and this girl that worked with me said hey why what about the three days you should about your grandmother, maybe you should do something with that.

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Noa Maiman: And then kind of went back to that and I started looking at it and I realized actually for the job is pretty good it's not only like a family family videos or something it's actually really good.

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Noa Maiman: Quality and then I started making the film and I think.

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Noa Maiman: To a certain level it felt like I wanted to take off the burden off of her shoulders, but to be entirely honest it's a burden that I always carried as well, so it wasn't on it to take it off her shoulders, but almost somewhat of mine.

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Noa Maiman: And they seem to work, to that extent, like, I remember, I was she was 95 when I started filming the movie and I was really worried that she would not make it by the time the film is.

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Noa Maiman: Is that finished, so we made a special screening for a few months before it was aired on TV.

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Noa Maiman: And she was she was in shock, he was sitting there in the premier, and she was I couldn't believe it all, for her and and after for four years, she lived another five years after she died.

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Noa Maiman: When she was 100 and a half, so every Holocaust day I would come to her and watch a film together and she watched herself and she would repeat the sentences that you say in the movement.

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Noa Maiman: And I did feel like to collide overburden definitely took some vibrant and made it much easier to live with that memory for me as well.

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Ari Goldstein: Thank you guys so much for sharing now we should get into later and just so the audience knows you read is trying to connect social you back with us shortly i'm sure.

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Ari Goldstein: I can share some of the questions that we had reviewed together in advance and.

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Ari Goldstein: will want to get into how the the second generation members of your family respond to each of your your films, but let me begin by asking how the survivors in your family's responded sounds like they were sort of excited to participate.

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Ari Goldstein: And alexa your grandmother was around for several years to sort of see the reaction to the film as well right.

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Alexa Karolinski: Yes, and also, they were not that excited to participate in the beginning at all.

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Alexa Karolinski: They were very resistant to participating, not only because.

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Alexa Karolinski: it's a basic issue of trust, especially when anything goes into the public but also just.

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Alexa Karolinski: The new or especially you know Bella I knew that I would be asking really hard questions at some point, you know, there was a lot of cooking and.

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Alexa Karolinski: lightness that you know I also wanted to know what happened and similar you know similar to know i've experienced and I think too many grandchildren of survivors experiences, you know, I think, while our parents sort of new to not ask if you know for us.

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Alexa Karolinski: We need to ask, we needed to ask and, and so it was really hard sometimes but.

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Alexa Karolinski: They also kind of sometimes cook haphazardly I think we're like Why are people into this like why you know, are we that interesting and then they wanted to hear like yes you're beautiful you're interesting and.

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Alexa Karolinski: And the area they lived in.

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Alexa Karolinski: it's a it's like it's a Berlin sort of you know it's in the city and people would recognize them all the time i'm three you know and in the supermarket and I think definitely made them feel a little famous I mean they were kind of famous in our in our neighborhood so.

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Alexa Karolinski: yeah.

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Ari Goldstein: Welcome back and.

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Ari Goldstein: tell us how the the survivors in your family responded to the film and i'll log off and hit the floor back to you.

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Noa Maiman: yeah well, I only want to live or sorry.

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Irit Felsen: Go ahead.

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Noa Maiman: You know, in the end my grandmother surviving and that staging and grandfather passed away when I was younger and unfortunately I don't know enough of the story just bits and pieces.

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Noa Maiman: But I think it gave her a lot of relief and I think we take alexa was described, she was very happy to be famous, although I would never say that.

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Noa Maiman: But, but she she was really hard for me for everyone is here to see me and i'm the Star and my grandmother really liked to be more than she always said, any modern.

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Noa Maiman: Modern you know um but uh, but I think it was it was a very big thing for her, and I remember the the contract, who is the Channel was for four years to be aired and in the fifth year she's a quiet about I remember, they don't show him.

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Noa Maiman: And then we discovered the early very late at night so she's still either or thing, but I think it became like when I started working on the film.

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Noa Maiman: A friend told me that tells see that when you make a film in the end the film becomes the story so whatever goes into the film stays in the story, and whatever doesn't go kind of.

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Noa Maiman: And I think he became he became a her story for her for me i'm not sure about my father all that much but i'll wait for the next question that part.

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Irit Felsen: So actually That would be my second My next question is actually about the reaction of the second generation in your family's to the idea of making the project and to the final product, because.

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Irit Felsen: In speaking about the second generation I think alexa, you are absolutely right, you know men second generation knew, not to ask.

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Irit Felsen: Any of those who did ask knew what not to ask, also in my family, I was the youngest of three my older sister and brother my sister was born.

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Irit Felsen: Right after my parents arrived in Palestine, which was immediately after the war and into the war of independence.

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Irit Felsen: And my brother shortly thereafter, and my father would say.

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Irit Felsen: about them to people I would hear and say you know they didn't ask they they they didn't want to cause us pain, the little one she didn't care she wanted to know you know.

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Irit Felsen: The bear with that, but many of us have what is called the double wall.

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Irit Felsen: The parents didn't want to talk about it because they didn't want to transmit the the the atrocities and the stories and the second generation didn't want to ask if you said, but you ask you went ahead and did this, how did your second generation respond to the idea.

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Irit Felsen: and whoever wants to take it back.

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Irit Felsen: First, not.

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Noa Maiman: So, so my father, basically, I kind of mentioned it, my father said i'm killing her, and they should stop doing that and why do we insist to dig in all the pains, and why and.

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Noa Maiman: You know, and why do I always put salt on these ones, and it was like it was against him, I mean again my grandmother and against everyone.

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Noa Maiman: By the time the film was almost done and I showed it to him as What about your grandfather your grandfather stories not there, you should tell your grandfather stories was.

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Noa Maiman: So there was like just basically a lot, a lot of challenges, when I was doing anything, it was pretty scary because I didn't know how to respond as well.

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Noa Maiman: I was kind of hoping it's going to give her some healing but, but there was no way I could know, it was the first film I ever made.

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Noa Maiman: And the interesting thing was in the premier, the first time you saw the full feature the full film after it was finalized.

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Noa Maiman: He discovered, for the first time, so my grandmother tells me and it's something I always knew I always asked my grandmother, and she was one of the survivors that always spoke.

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Noa Maiman: My grandfather didn't speak my grandfather only said one sentence about the Holocaust, which was that, after the Holocaust, he was like a bird someone caught the end of his wings.

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Noa Maiman: And he could never feel as happy as he used to and could never feel inside of US don't do that was the only thing we knew about him, but my grandmother spoke a lot and.

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Noa Maiman: If I would have to guess my father probably didn't want to hear it all and i'm assuming that the sister my aunt was the only one that was willing to listen until I came and I was always asking and always wanted to know.

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Noa Maiman: And so I always knew with me, that my grandmother when add an abortion, she was in the ghetto, and she got pregnant and she said i'm not going to give i'm not going to give birth to a Jewish baby those days and.

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Noa Maiman: And she and her first has been it wasn't my grandfather.

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Noa Maiman: The escape the ghetto went to this monastery where she had an abortion and she's telling tells about it in the movie out she was next to this.

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Noa Maiman: And that's the officer lady that was giving birth and he gave her diamond and she was there freaked out that no one will know she was Jewish.

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Noa Maiman: So I always knew about that, and it was very obvious to me and I never imagined that my father had no idea about, and when we came out of the premier, he said that he never knew.

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Noa Maiman: that she had an abortion and she is well when I asked her in the movie she said sure they say like you sure you want me to stay in public.

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Noa Maiman: So obviously was somewhat of a secret, but like that's a good example of something that he had no idea that happen, which you know, obviously affect him more than me directly, was supposed to have another brother or sister or whatever it is.

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Noa Maiman: And so, so I think in many ways the film gave him the story some of the story that he'd never heard and probably didn't want to hear as well.

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Noa Maiman: I think, in retrospect, is probably pretty happy about that.

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Noa Maiman: That are still until today, he was very pleased when it was aired in TV and when people told him things about his mother and our mating season.

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Noa Maiman: So we did enjoy that part, but I will say that until to them i'm somewhat surprised, because for me having this film is having her alive, and you know, have an ability to see her too short to my kids i'm very keen on that passing the trauma but letting them know my grandmother and.

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Noa Maiman: And, and with them, I feel that they they still are a bit hesitant I think they're happy it's there, but like I don't think anyone have them watch it against in the premier, you know so it's still kind of it's a good thing it's there it's a good thing you did it.

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Noa Maiman: Get working on your grandfather story, but, but you know but don't force us to watch it again.

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Irit Felsen: yeah you know I know a lot of people who have not watched the parents testimonies on video, which were given.

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Irit Felsen: Whether in the context of this Spielberg project or the Yale archives or other places that they they and their second generation child has not yet found in the capacity to watch it it's so.

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Noa Maiman: I do have to say my in my undergrad the one of my dissertation topic was analyzing my grandmother's Holocaust story, it was many years before the film.

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Noa Maiman: And it was about the collective memory versus the personal memory and where do they kind of crossed that.

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Noa Maiman: And I remember, then learning about that the the result of bearing witness it's really hard to know, so I I can definitely understand that, especially when it is your parents, you know the one on one level of separation for us.

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Irit Felsen: Absolutely, and indeed you, you have been protected by another generation.

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Irit Felsen: and your survival grandparents are also they were also at a very different life base by the time that you were doing this and getting to know them, then they were such a short time after the end of the trauma when they were raising their children.

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Irit Felsen: So it's a completely different.

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Irit Felsen: time in their lives, and another very important aspect is the fact that the social, cultural attitude to the Holocaust and to Holocaust survivors.

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Irit Felsen: is changed very dramatically over the years, so we were growing up, it was something not to talk about it was you know in America, the survivors were treated as the Green nails in Israel, they were also there were all kinds.

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Irit Felsen: of expressions and everybody basically wanted the second generation wanted to be Americans or Canadians or.

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Noa Maiman: tablet jelly jelly.

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Irit Felsen: Children of survivors and and by the time you came around, I think the attitudes were very different with a lot more respect and a lot more focus on the.

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Irit Felsen: On the resilience and the heroism of the survivors then on the victim and humiliation and in those aspects alexa What was it like for your father your your almost son.

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hmm.

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Alexa Karolinski: um.

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Alexa Karolinski: Honestly, I think the way I remember it was, I think he kept out of me, making the film also, I think, out of.

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Alexa Karolinski: Honesty respect for my studies.

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Alexa Karolinski: He sort of was like okay you're doing this with your grandmother abella son didn't want to be in the film at all and.

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Alexa Karolinski: My parents aren't really in the film there's just one big shabbat dinner where everybody's there but fella less than just you know he he wasn't sure what this was going to be, and I think he's a bit scared and I think you know after the film came out.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know, growing up in Germany Jewish after the Holocaust that it really could put different than it is real, of course, and dude have experienced literally so much eraser and Germany, because it was they were literally a race, but also.

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Alexa Karolinski: When you grew up there as a second or third generation you feel a razor a lot all the time about what's not there anymore, and I think you know I think my dad and a lot of people in our little Community we're happy that you know, there was something new Jewish.

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Alexa Karolinski: And something that you know was really inviting for people to feel joy about among Jews and non Jews, and I think it was just.

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Alexa Karolinski: I think my dad was really proud of his mom and and and that we, you know that this existed.

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Alexa Karolinski: it's different in Israel, where there's so many descendants of Holocaust survivors, and you know it's just a really different thing.

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Irit Felsen: Absolutely, you know I spent four and a half years in Hamburg.

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Irit Felsen: When I did my PhD and I was working for the Israeli government there and I totally can relate to this profound sense of eraser.

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Irit Felsen: I remember once going walking towards the university, the first time I actually went to meet the Professor I was going to work with.

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Irit Felsen: And all of a sudden, I caught this little sign at the at the core that kind of square and it was on the side and it said on this square that you have Hamburg were collected, before going to the transport to the concentration camp.

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Irit Felsen: And I still thinking about it, I get all sort of goosebumps because it was so horrifying you have to to to see this ality juxtaposed in this way, but you know the question begs it says right from what you say hell, do you understand all my decision to stay in Germany, after the war.

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Alexa Karolinski: yeah I mean that's a decision I I wrestled with a lot in my life I don't anymore, because I really understand it now, I think.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know, also seeing other things that happen in the world today and movement of people and refugees, I really have to say that, like choice as a privilege.

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Alexa Karolinski: and

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Alexa Karolinski: You know my grandmother and and the people that stayed you know that they basically they were brought most of them were actually Polish Jews that were brought to Berlin as displaced persons and they were in the displaced person camp or people can and then.

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Alexa Karolinski: From there they got their visas to America or Canada, or they went to Palestine and Israel, and I think.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know, in the case of my grandmother is in the case of a couple of thousand others it's like you lost your entire family or review one surviving sibling or cousin.

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Alexa Karolinski: And unless you all can go together somewhere it's more important to you know stick together and.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know, they were 1920 years old, they were really young and in this, my dad was born and then in a dp camp and the people they met in the dp camp very quickly became their new families and and their new Community and the other thing.

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Alexa Karolinski: That I used to really judge morally, but now I I get it as well, is the fact that you know as a Jew in Berlin.

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Alexa Karolinski: After the war, a divided city where the Americans are occupiers Jews were able to move more free than really anybody else because of what has been done to them and.

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Alexa Karolinski: A lot of them really I really can't hit any different just did very well on the black market and and made well for themselves, and it was very easy to earn money and.

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Alexa Karolinski: Of course, with a massive moral price on it right is the fact like that they in the late 40s were able to sort of you know, be busy but.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know until the day my grandmother died she never had any non Jewish friends, she was still friends with those people, she was in the dp camp with you know the you know a great moral price i'm living in a place where you think that everybody is your enemy, and that is a is an.

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Alexa Karolinski: Additional trauma on top of the trauma of the Holocaust, that I feel Jews that stayed in Germany.

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Alexa Karolinski: Had and Dave to their children and grandchildren is an intense I mean, I think this is like a post you, you know more about this, like a post-holocaust like everybody hates us and wants us dead.

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Alexa Karolinski: attitude i'm sure exists everywhere among the descendants of Holocaust survivors, I think, in the case of Germany it's been a little bit specific just because it's Germany but um yeah.

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Noa Maiman: But they do after that you know my grandmother that was Polish she when she realized that the Russians are taking over Poland, she escaped back to Germany, you know by.

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Noa Maiman: The end of 45 and she said, the Russians were there was like she was.

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Noa Maiman: You know she prefer to go to move to Germany, she was not a German you know, he was a politician, he moved there, and she was during the space people's comfort to interfere, so I think.

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Noa Maiman: To a certain level the was you know the words in some sort of strange sense that may be safer than other places at that stage.

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Alexa Karolinski: yeah I mean my grandparents always vilified Polish people more than German for them, it was the polls and we never went to Poland.

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Alexa Karolinski: Poland, but.

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Alexa Karolinski: And you know, and then you know and then it's like if we go to Israel, but then there's a war and 48 and then it's like do we want to endure another war and they're scared it, you know it's just it was never it was never a real choice you know it just sort of happened that way.

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Irit Felsen: You know alexa what comes across very beautifully I think in the way that you speak about it, and I think know you, you and I communicated about it, and it also came across when you said you know.

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Irit Felsen: When I became apparent when I reached 40 certain things change I think what also comes across for my clinical work for my research with the different generations is that, for the third generation.

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Irit Felsen: There is a real sort of also for the second, but for the third definitely very much a certain evolution and change in the way that you view a lot of things as you age.

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Irit Felsen: You know, it was also true for the second generation but it's I find it even more so with the third that you get a.

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Irit Felsen: different perspective, like you say alexa I really struggled with it, and now I understand it, I see it differently, I no I you said about a few things when I reached 40 or now that I am a parent I see it differently, I think that.

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Irit Felsen: that's also something that we see again in empirical studies that people say that the meaning of the Holocaust and the understanding and the comprehension of it so solo.

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Irit Felsen: matures with life changes with life, especially for the third generation and.

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Irit Felsen: I wanted to you touched upon the moral issue alexa you use the word, you know moral or what we call today moral injury, when we talk about people who enjoy all kinds of traumatic events from various directions your story your your documentary.

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Irit Felsen: touches upon something that I think is inevitable for any descendant of the Holocaust and that's the question would I have done the same, would I have managed to put the lives of my children and my partner at risk to save other people.

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Irit Felsen: And how do we struggle with that how did you how do you find that this is part of your.

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legacy.

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Noa Maiman: me yeah.

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Irit Felsen: Both of you.

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Irit Felsen: Yes, you.

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Irit Felsen: Because you know, in your documentary, let me just say very quickly in your documentary you also included a very unique aspect of growing older in Israel.

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Irit Felsen: Which is that a lot of older survivors he had people from other countries Filipinos in your grandma's case someone from Peru, which where she spent some years.

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Irit Felsen: Take care of them in their homes as living aids and in your grandma's case she did something that i've never heard or her caretaker got pregnant and grandma living in Assisted Living facilities fought for the ride for this woman to have her baby and raise the child in the.

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Irit Felsen: Assisted Living facility.

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Alexa Karolinski: yeah amazing.

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Noa Maiman: yeah so yeah really I did ask him my grandmother in the Philips hue of than once that how are the Polish lady did to save her and she.

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Noa Maiman: very honest to say, well, I don't think so, you know I love Magnum Magnum was a caretaker I lover i'll do a lot for her.

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Noa Maiman: She did for to allow magnets whoever are only daughter she Magna was 42 I think when she gave birth, so it was very obvious that these are only child.

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Noa Maiman: When she did fought for her to be able to razor in the elderly house, but you know it's it's very easy when you live a comfortable life to fight for someone's ability to raise this child there.

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Noa Maiman: And I think for me it's the classical if you're a socialist when you're 20 and 30 and 40 so.

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Noa Maiman: So in my 20s I was sure that if we do it ever happen again, we have serious fighter, and I will help everyone survive that and it was very much a principle for me.

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Noa Maiman: And I did like when I worked in the on the movie my grandmother made me promise to her that.

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Noa Maiman: If she passes away i'll make sure this federated the young child named after her will be fine and she will be legal legal in Israel at the time they weren't legal in Israel, but they are now.

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Noa Maiman: And for many years, I was thinking, I was participating in that in this kind of activity activism against departing those children, and it was very important for me to fulfill me and my grandmother's, we should make sure that they're safe.

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Noa Maiman: But, again, I didn't jeopardize anyone's life when it's easier when you're a generation Israeli very used to being able to fight, or whatever you want and.

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Noa Maiman: and speak freely and I don't think it's the case now, but it was the case where I grew up and.

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Noa Maiman: So so so it was it was a principle for me like for me the Holocaust, the one thing we should learn from the Holocaust is to make sure people get good.

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Noa Maiman: Would equal rights wherever they are, whatever, whoever they are and and Florida she's a 16 year old girl out she their family or parents that converted to Judaism and their orthodoxy is not very orthodox but she's a 16 year old that girl living in Israel now and.

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Noa Maiman: And she was, by the way, I just saw a few weeks ago into before I left Israel and she said that it was really traumatizing for her one.

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Noa Maiman: Our grandmother passed away because she you know she turned from this kind of somewhat of a Jewish princess living really, really good life to.

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Noa Maiman: daughter of South American immigrants orthodox in an Orthodox community in Medina, and it really changed your life and affected or a lot but um.

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Noa Maiman: But I do see with time kind of that they get less and less involved, unfortunately with with kind of activism, and there are some causes that are really important for me and I definitely.

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Noa Maiman: You know I definitely make a point of teaching my kids one of the reasons I moved with them now and decided not to raise them in Israel was because I want to teach them that all peoples are equal and all humans are equal and that will treat.

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Noa Maiman: Every person is a person, regardless of what is religion or ethnicity or background.

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Noa Maiman: But I do have to say that, looking from now I would probably not jeopardize my family i'll do whatever I can to assist two people in need, without jeopardizing my family but but it's not as strong as it was in my 20s.

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Irit Felsen: Thank you.

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Irit Felsen: So you know, I have a friend who's not Jewish and North American and and she said to me once with great confidence, of course I would I would certainly by people if this happened.

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Irit Felsen: And I thought to myself, there is the difference between you and me as a second generation for me it's much more close to home it's much more personal it's much more we and for me therefore it's much less obvious that, of course I will do that not so sure it's a huge thing yeah alexa.

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Irit Felsen: I wanted to perhaps start with you, and maybe we can and also have not added to it later, you touched upon, not the more you want to transmit to your children.

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Irit Felsen: And since we want to open the discussion for questions and comments from the audience in five minutes, perhaps I will just ask the two of you one more question that follows up on there.

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Irit Felsen: There is the concept in history, research and in in in psychology, especially in my field of intergenerational effects of historical trauma in various groups there's the concept of a usable pass.

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Irit Felsen: Are usable past pertains to aspect of our family history aspect of our ancestral history that we feel are very meaningful to us to our identity to how we see ourselves, these are aspects that we feel enrich our lives in the present.

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Irit Felsen: inform our values and that these are aspects that we want to transmit forward to the next generations.

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Irit Felsen: So now, you spoke about a little bit about it in your answer alexa What did you, what do you think about it, what do you think you wanted to capture in your documentary and and in this way.

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Alexa Karolinski: Well, I think in terms of usable passes actually exactly to me the the previous question.

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Alexa Karolinski: And I think you know, in a way, I think it's too literal to think about you know, would we hide people if this happened again because it gives us an excuse to not do anything, right now, when we see things because you know.

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Alexa Karolinski: I I think it's impossible for anybody to know what they would do in that kind of situation and I think the people that saved like like noah's.

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Noa Maiman: per day.

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Alexa Karolinski: know his grandmother and I highly doubt if you had asked them a couple of years earlier, they were going to see Jews, that they would have said yes, you know it would probably just happened and felt right to them in that moment and I, and I feel like.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know, we don't need to wait till awful things happen really awful things happen, because I feel like in every society, certainly in Israel and I live in the USA, I mean, I have a list this long and.

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Alexa Karolinski: I have little children as well, and I think I don't want to define my Judaism just by only by the Holocaust, or by feeling marginalized you know.

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Alexa Karolinski: I think part of the privilege of the third generation is that we get to do something positive, with our Judaism, especially you know i'm not i'm a secular Jew so.

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Alexa Karolinski: For me it's not really about religion it's about culture, and it is about civil rights, and it is about equal rights for all, so I think.

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Alexa Karolinski: and thankfully Judaism, is a culture and religion that actually is very connected to helping others and.

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Alexa Karolinski: And I feel like for me what i'm going to give my children is, what can we do positively.

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Alexa Karolinski: With our jewishness you know what is, what can we what kind of beauty, can we create with it, and what can we give others with it, and I think what belongs to, that is just truly to me can't just be about us at all because.

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Alexa Karolinski: It really is to me about all all humans, and so I just feel like we don't need to wait to hide people, we can we can do a lot now and we need to do a lot now.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know the movie.

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Irit Felsen: I could not agree more with you and I think you know, there is the thing that's going around now with survivors.

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Irit Felsen: It started with words right it didn't start with having to hide people at the cost of the lives of Emily it starts with small things that each of us can do something about right now and there's plenty to do as you said, whether it's in the United States in Canada or in.

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Irit Felsen: anywhere everywhere everywhere, so we only have another one minute so I just wanted to say that in your documentary alexa.

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Irit Felsen: There is a lot of the repatriation of the taste of home the pace of childhood which Alma and Bella didn't we even have a chance to learn to do, but they very intentionally.

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Irit Felsen: found a way to learn it and you focus very much on it, I think that to me at least, it was a very, very powerful metaphor for a usable past for.

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Irit Felsen: recreating something that I always said before my children that.

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Irit Felsen: I love, creating the foods that my father told me his grandmother made because the thought that we are enjoying the same taste and smell that they did is such a such a concrete connection is there is there, something you can tell me about why you chose to focus so much on the cooking.

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Alexa Karolinski: Well it's because of how I connected with them, you know it, you know even it.

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Alexa Karolinski: Regardless of what we felt about if we just watch TV when I was at my grandmother's house and what we did, there would always be the same food, and I feel like.

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Alexa Karolinski: it's how a lot of in every you know specific culture and and, since all mondo I came out I feel like i've had so many other like in America like children and grandchildren of immigrants tell me to stay in this.

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Alexa Karolinski: sort of they don't even speak the language anymore, they don't go to where they're from but they still eat the food is sort of this it's just thinking that you know how culture can survive when other elements of culture don't.

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and

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Alexa Karolinski: The dinner yeah.

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Alexa Karolinski: yeah and it's sort of you know it's like Marcel Proust in the Madeline kind of the same thing it's just like a smell or taste can can you know, bring memories in this really um and I, you know I.

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Alexa Karolinski: I make Jewish food now and I make it on the holidays or for my kids and, of course, not everything is like.

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Alexa Karolinski: i'm not trying to use this as sort of you know inject them with our history, but it should also just be this beautiful thing and that's like a taste of home and and my family we I chicken soup is my favorite thing to make still it's when i'm not feeling, well, it is what I like to eat.

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Alexa Karolinski: We are and we yeah we.

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Irit Felsen: All we all do, that you know we all do, that so.

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Alexa Karolinski: it's kinda.

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Alexa Karolinski: yeah I think.

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Alexa Karolinski: I think it's so important.

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Irit Felsen: yeah.

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Alexa Karolinski: And just cultural, what is it like cultural transference or something.

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Alexa Karolinski: yeah there's a.

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Irit Felsen: term translation yeah.

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Irit Felsen: yeah yeah so I just before stopping I do want to tell you that the warm and the big glowing of the eyes.

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Irit Felsen: That both of you show when you speak about your grandmother's is incredibly touching and that.

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Irit Felsen: It is part of what we see in studies on large samples that the relationship between the third generation and the first is different from the second generation.

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Irit Felsen: A lot of the anger is not there, a lot of the sense of the childhood that was over shared code in some ways by the parents pain is not there.

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Irit Felsen: There is a lot of pride, a lot of understanding compassion and enjoyment and a focus on the strengths and the resiliency that the grandparents.

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Irit Felsen: had not only in the Holocaust, but throughout their lives.

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Irit Felsen: So thank you so much, and with that I will open it to comments and questions from the audience I could speak with you for a lot longer about it it's fascinating, thank you for these amazing documentaries, which I hope everybody will go watch after our Program.

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Irit Felsen: And we can you.

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Irit Felsen: tell us a little bit about the questions or comments that you have received.

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Ari Goldstein: Yes, but i'm just going to start with one from me, because we I know we I believe we used to have an omen and Bella cookbook in their museum shop and I guess it's not available in the US anymore alexa can, is there any way we can get.

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Alexa Karolinski: No, it is it's just because of COPA, and I, you know I distributed at myself and stuff it's kind of like a little other operation that I run here.

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Alexa Karolinski: And it just became too complicated, I bring the books from Germany and stuff and with cove it just wasn't possible so.

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Alexa Karolinski: People can order them if they write me, which I know is an extra step people still do that sometimes I just don't have the automatic.

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Alexa Karolinski: thing I do, I feel like via PayPal and then i'll send them whatever they want, and you can still get them at certain stores in the US.

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Alexa Karolinski: like an omnivore in San Francisco that's a book like a smoke shop they always reorder i'm not sure if the Jewish museum of Jewish heritage ever reordered be honest.

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Ari Goldstein: Well we'll have to do that.

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Ari Goldstein: yeah um let's take a question from from William he's asking for both of you know, an alexa and what does it mean to your parents to grow up without grandparents was that something that they thought about a central to their loss or Is that not the framework.

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Alexa Karolinski: New gonna.

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Noa Maiman: aim for as a feather actually had the only surviving person beside his parents was his grandmother funny which i'm named after and you always said he had no sense of humor.

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Noa Maiman: that's like the only thing I heard that he was really not funny and sometimes I wonder if it's like if it's part of the familiar part of our history um.

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Noa Maiman: But, but there was no he never talked about like he talks about the dead people living with them about his uncle and his hands, and so there were always kind of existing as part of their life.

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Noa Maiman: But I don't think it talks about specific laws, but the was, however, he was he was born in the refugee camp in Germany in that space people in landsberg.

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Noa Maiman: And then they move to Peru, and it was two and a half years old, so the Community improved was all Jewish Holocaust survivor the sentence that had no family moved to Peru and became their family so until today, I would say that.

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Noa Maiman: This small community that although I think all of them are most of them migrated to Israel later, but like the father right to Israel in 69 I think so.

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Noa Maiman: So this community of Jewish Peruvian I always love to take was brought up more Peruvian and Polish because, like most of the food aid side, the chicken soup and.

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Noa Maiman: And some other stuff was Peruvian food so so We grew up as a community of Holocaust survivors and and they were uncle and aunty although.

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Noa Maiman: they're you know they're not biologically so, so I think it was definitely missing, I wonder, sometimes when I see my father relations to my son.

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Noa Maiman: loves him like i've never imagined my father would be you know so so in love with any creature in the world, and when they see that I wonder if it's some some somewhat of a compensation for it never had um.

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Noa Maiman: But yeah I think it may be one of those things that if you don't have you don't know you're missing, to a certain degree.

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Noa Maiman: um.

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Irit Felsen: let's uh what's your take on it.

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Alexa Karolinski: i'm a second generation and grandparents.

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Irit Felsen: That it was that they missed it.

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Alexa Karolinski: Oh i'm sure they missed so much i'm sure they grew up feeling so much loss and didn't know what to do with it at all that's why they were so angry, I think.

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Irit Felsen: And though.

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Alexa Karolinski: I mean weirdly my mom actually had grandparents they survive because my my mom's parents were in in Russia during the war and so she did grew up with grandparents, but my mom and I was actually listening right now we're watching but.

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Alexa Karolinski: She in Montreal, yes, she grew up with stories of you know how am I gonna how her grandfather was like a Polish national basically and they were so privileged and my grandmother had her own horse carriage and pull hundred and stuff like that, and the war.

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Alexa Karolinski: And then I think my my mother grew up with a very depressed grandfather, and I think, a very depressed father and.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know, so I think, even if she did have grandparents, it was not was not like for us.

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Irit Felsen: You know what so I can tell you from my perspective in Israel, I grew up in a in an environment where a lot of my parents friends were Holocaust survivors.

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Irit Felsen: and basically almost nobody had their parents survived so none of us second generation really had a grandparent and there was one family, where the grandmothers survive because they fled to Siberia.

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Irit Felsen: And she was Alma to all of us, all of us her Alma and all of us treated her like Alma and she treated us like our like grandchildren.

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Irit Felsen: And it was a treasure, it was an unbelievably important thing because.

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Irit Felsen: I do remember kind of looking at some other people from other let's say Jewish ethnic groups, where the word grandparents and thinking gee wow you know and and and studies do show us actually that.

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Irit Felsen: In interviewing second generation in research, it was one of the things that was very painful, the absence of extended family and the disconnection of the generational chain.

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Irit Felsen: was very painful was very missing yeah la any other thing.

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Ari Goldstein: yeah we have a lot of good questions.

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Alexa Karolinski: I want to read this yeah these are also good i'm just reading them a sudden like.

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Noa Maiman: wow.

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Ari Goldstein: they're good, I want to read this one, a lot from somebody in the audience who's who's a second member of the second generation.

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Ari Goldstein: My youngest son had immense respect for my parents his grandparents both Holocaust survivors, this seems to be bypassing me and he seems to be angry with me for having elements second generation trauma.

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Ari Goldstein: He seems to want no evidence reminders of our heritage, from me this hurts any ideas on how to bridge this chasm in our communication, and all of you should feel welcome to answer you read, I wonder, from your experience dealing with to send it families, how you might address this.

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Irit Felsen: So, if I understood you correctly, because there was a little bit of a disconnect so I lost a couple of bites sound bites.

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Irit Felsen: that the third generation, the 3G as we refer events, sometimes does not want to hear anything about the second generations experiences is second generation and about the Holocaust.

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Ari Goldstein: yeah and it sounds like from this question has some resentment towards the two G for some of the trauma of being too cheap.

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Irit Felsen: yeah well you know what I can tell you is that, in terms of our research.

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Irit Felsen: We know that the burden of the effects transmitted is related to the level of.

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Irit Felsen: Post traumatic reactions that the survivors continue to suffer from an intern that the second generation continue to suffer from from the perspective of the third generation, so let me explain myself better.

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Irit Felsen: There is a tremendous variability in the survival generation and in the second generation and in the third generation we're not all alive, some people came out of the Holocaust, with more.

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Irit Felsen: damaging posttraumatic reactions and sensitivities and symptoms and something for came out with or or.

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Irit Felsen: recuperated better and had less persistent post traumatic symptoms and reactions from the perspective of the next generation, the most important thing in terms of how.

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Irit Felsen: negatively they experience their relationship in the family and how much of the burden they feel was transmitted on to them the most important factor is that the level of persistent post traumatic symptoms in their parents and.

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Irit Felsen: Many times when one feels that there was a lot of it, then there is of course the.

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Irit Felsen: sense of anger and resentment that I mentioned briefly before on the whole, there is more of it, and the second generation towards their parents, then we see on the hole in the third generation towards the second.

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Irit Felsen: So there's more sense of resentment of anger of have a you have a childhood that was somehow.

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Irit Felsen: overshadowed by the difficulties of the survivor parents, on the whole, there is less of it in the third generation towards the second generation they feel that their family atmosphere was more.

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Irit Felsen: Emotionally expressive that the there was greater warmth and more encouragement of autonomy and independence, on the whole, but there are definitely second generation individuals parents who suffered more.

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Irit Felsen: because their parents were more posttraumatic and then the third generation in those families suffered more in my head more bitterness more resentment about it and that's, of course, a very painful state of affairs.

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Irit Felsen: And I think that is what we are hearing in this in this example and I see quite a few of these examples, unfortunately, and as.

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Irit Felsen: One of the colleagues of mine put it in the conclusion to their research, you know the group by Bob smoking and an imagery.

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Irit Felsen: from Israel and others they as they put it, it may take in many families, more than three generations to mitigate the catastrophic effects of an event like the whole of us.

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Alexa Karolinski: may add to that my observation as a grandchild and files, I also think.

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Alexa Karolinski: I also think, without you know i've often growing up and resentful of my of the second generation.

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Alexa Karolinski: Not because.

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Alexa Karolinski: You know, on some level the trauma that Holocaust survivors went through it is explained the way they were the way that as the way the way.

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Alexa Karolinski: The way they were, and I think to like grandchildren and also having old grandparents.

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Alexa Karolinski: A lot was always sort of justified by the Holocaust, and I think on some level second generation that grew up in Israel or America or Canada or in my kids Germany or whatever.

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Alexa Karolinski: I think, maybe there's less patience for using the Holocaust to justify behavior and attitude, because I feel like when you're a third generation like I you know for my film or know our like you know we.

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Alexa Karolinski: were doing the work sometimes feels like and we we struggle with anxiety and depression and we go see the psychologist and we are trying to do the work and maybe sometimes feels like the second generation.

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Alexa Karolinski: is using growing up with their parents and their parents trauma I don't know many people my parents age that have really been analyzed or been to therapy.

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Alexa Karolinski: For being second generation, you know yeah and and I think that's that maybe brings with it, some resentment as a child as well you know.

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Irit Felsen: yeah yeah I think that you're touching upon some very important points, but it is also a very different time.

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Alexa Karolinski: As I said, different era.

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Irit Felsen: Different attitude, you know when my when I was growing up, I do remember one family that sent her daughter, the.

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Irit Felsen: understand her daughter to a therapist at the time, you know, and you couldn't really hide anything in Jerusalem of that time everybody in your business.

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Irit Felsen: So everybody knew that the girl was going to a therapist and everybody basically thought that she must be really, really disordered and something's really, really wrong with her.

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Irit Felsen: Those were the attitudes of that time and the attitudes changed now, we talked about ptsd is part of daily life, no, there was no ptsd then.

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Irit Felsen: yeah they didn't understand what they were being what they were dealing what they were being exposed to, there was no going to the therapist unless you were really crazy so things have really changed and and, in some ways, things changed for the better in some ways, not so much, but.

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Alexa Karolinski: But anybody still go write.

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Alexa Karolinski: A second anybody can go.

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Irit Felsen: and go anybody can still go and I have to tell you, as a clinical psychologist who does.

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Irit Felsen: A lot of work with the second generation, a lot of people do go to me and to my colleagues and I can see inordinate changes.

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Irit Felsen: In second generation, because this is an incredible group of talented resilient people who come from talented resilient people and.

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Irit Felsen: And they make changes very amazingly, especially now kind of middle age brings with it, some opportunities we lose, something that we had when we were young, but we also gain something and second generation make tremendous gains in therapy in middle age and beyond.

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amazing.

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Ari Goldstein: Very fortunately have to close the program because we hit the hour mark and I want to let everyone.

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Irit Felsen: Yes, you're.

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Ari Goldstein: so grateful to each of you read alexa and now for joining us today and sharing some of your personal and professional perspectives on this there's a lot more to get into.

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Ari Goldstein: We will send a recording today's discussion out via email tomorrow, along with links to watch noah's film why mama and Alexis film oma and Bella info and some other resources, and we hope you do explore them and join us for all of your upcoming programs and events.

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Ari Goldstein: We do a lot in different ways.

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Ari Goldstein: And I hope we're dealing with it in ways that that some of you in the audience with personal experiences are finding interesting and meaningful for you.

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Ari Goldstein: And i'll plug also just because it came up, we have a program on August 26 called recipes remembered, which is all a cookbook that.

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Ari Goldstein: reflects the recipes and memories of Holocaust survivors in the way that food is a vehicle for their story, so I thought that was a beautiful connection Alexis said.

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Ari Goldstein: You can find that in upcoming programs on our website.

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Irit Felsen: Thank you.

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Irit Felsen: for all your work on this program I really appreciate it it's a pleasure working with you and thank you alexa and not for joining us it was amazing Thank you.

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Alexa Karolinski: Thank you.

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Noa Maiman: Very much was a pleasure.

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bye.