hey integrated quickly into a new society. The majority of the people adapted adequately to their changed life, in newly founded families, jobs and kibbutzim, many however still suffered from chronic anxiety, sleep disturbances, nightmares, emotional instability and depressive states. The worst however were those people who went to the United States, Canada, and Austrailia, some of them with extreme psychological traumatizations. They had to adjust to strange new surroundings, learn a new language, and adapt to new laws, in addition to building new lives. After the survivors received compensation from the West German government, they were examined by specialists in internal and neurological medicine. In most cases, no ill effects directly attributable to detainment in camps were found. The reason for this was because the repeated selection of Jewish victims for extermination in ghettos, on arrival at the camps, again at the frequent medical examinations, in the sick bays, and at every transferment that all those showing signs of physical disease had already been eliminated. Many survivors described themselves as incapable of living life to the fullest, often barely able to perform basic tasks. They felt that the war had changed them and they had lost their much needed spark to life. Investigations show that the extreme traumatizations of the camps inflicted deep wounds that have healed very slowly, and that more than 40 years later, the scars are still present. There has shown to be clear differences between camp victims and statistically comparable Canadian Jews: the survivors show long term consequences of the Holocaust in the form of psychological stress, associated with heightened sensitivity to anti-semitism and persecution. The survivors, normal people before the Holocaust, were exposed to situations of extreme stress and to psychic traumatization. Their reactions to inhuman treatment were "normal" because not to react to treatmen...
