absorption because of the serious problems they had to overcome (loss of family and of the social and cultural backround they had known before the Holocaust). The community in Israel tried to provide them with personal and professional care. Nevertheless, to those survivors who immigrated to Israel when elderly it was more difficult to adjust than the younger survivors. There was also a study done in the University Psychiatric Hospital in Jerusalem 40 years after liberation. It revealed a difference between hospitalized depressive patients who had been inmates of Nazi concentration camps and the match group of patients who had not been persecuted. The camp survivors were more belligerent, demanding, and regressive than the control group. Oddly enough their behavior may have helped their survival. Despite the many hardships and difficulties faced by the survivors in Israel, their general adjustment has been satisfactory, both vocationally and socially. In the end it has been more successful than that of Holocaust survivors in other countries. When looking at it from a general point of view, the survivors, for the most part have shown to be as strong as humanly possible. Not one person who hasn't seen what they saw can possibly imagine how they feel. Many people are greatly affected by things the survivors would consider menial. There is no other way they are supposed to act. These people were lucky to have survived but there is no doubt that there have been times when their memories have made them think otherwise. ...
