On the transmission of the trauma of the national socialist extermination of the Jews.

With reference to central passages of an interview with a Jewish woman from the second generation, the author focuses first on the content side of the dispute about the transmission of the trauma of the National Socialist extermination of the Jews, proceeding from there to pinpoint various rationalization strategies generated in connection with Nazi persecution: the allegation of a "pact of silence" on "both sides", a negation of differences between victims and perpetrators, the construction of a form of "complicity" between victims and persecutors, the allegation of kinship between victims and perpetrators, the attempt to "therapeutize" the trauma caused by the Nazi, and finally the "psychologization" of reality. Reflections on the way survivors talk about their experiences and on the overestimation of verbalization lead to conclusions about the transmission mode operative in the ongoing trauma of the extermination of the Jews by the National Socialists in survivor families.