nces of those who were able to actively resist the oppression, whether in the underground or among the partisans, were different in every way from the experiences of those who were victims in extermination camps. When the survivors integrated back into society after the war, they found it very hard to adjust. It was made difficult by the fact that they often aroused ambivalent feelings of fear, avoidence, guilt, pity and anxiety. This might have been hard for them, but decades after the Holocaust most of the survivors managed to rehabilitate their capacities and rejoin the paths their lives might have taken prior to the Holocaust. This is more true for the people who experienced the Holocaust as children or young adults. Their families live with a special attitude toward psychobiological continuity, fear of separation, and fear of prolonged sickness and death. The experience of the Holocaust shows how human beings can undergo extreme traumatic experiences without suffering from a total regression and without losing their ability to rehabilitate their ego strength. The survivors discovered the powers within them in whatever aspect in their lives that were needed. Survivors of Ghettos and Camps The Jews, arrested and brought to the concentration camps during WWII were under sentence of death. Their chances of surviving the war minimal. Their brutal treatment on the part of the camp guards and even some of the other prisoners influenced the Jews. The months or years already spent in the ghettos, with continuous persecutions and random selections, had brought some to a chronic state of insecurity and anxiety and others to apathy and hopelessness, even though passive or active resistance had also occured. This horrible situation was worsened by overcrowding, infectious diseases, lack of facilities for basic hygiene and continuous starvation. When the people were transported to the concentration camps, they lived in horrible conditions such a...
