How has the Holocaust affected the children of survivors?

I can answer this question based on personal experience as well as knowledge about the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the intentional incarceration and slaughter of Jews, Jehovah Witnesses, Gypsies, Homosexuals, persons with disabilities, and other persons not considered to be ethnically appropriate.  It occurred under the rule of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party and was enforced through the German army and its allies. It was used as ethnic cleansing.

The horrific details that went into the annihilation of the Nazi's victims was profound and has had a long lasting effect on survivor's children. The survivors brought with them nightmares and stories about the atrocities of the era: people being beaten in the street, having to wear a star on their clothing, all rights evoked, no ability to attend school, starvation, but most of all the witness of the deaths of millions of Jews and other groups disliked by the Nazis. The fear the survivors experienced during their ordeal did not leave many of them even after the war ended.  For others the guilt at not being one of the dead was too great a burden to bear.  In many cases people were left with continued feelings of shame and inadequacy.

Survivor’s children witnessed the drama of the war through the eyes of their parents.  The war became as real for them as it had been for their parents.  As survivors suffered mental illness due to Post Traumatic Stress Trauma their children found themselves without their parent in the home or having a withdrawn parent.  Some children listened to stories retold over and over as their parent/parents tried to ensure that the events would never happen again.  From my own parents I received awareness that there was an urgency that I was to change the world for the good.  The responsibility to change what survivor parents could not was passed down to the next generation.  Other survivors shared little with their off spring about the war but kept it hidden inside.  However, the emotional trauma emerged in other ways.

Many people lost loved ones in the ghettos, sealed off areas where they housed large quantities of Jews, in concentration camps, on the streets, and through war.  Children of Holocaust survivors were raised with limited family connections and for some this led to feelings of isolation.  Other children experienced highly dysfunctional lives as their family members tried to cope.  Many children of survivors, like myself, I have learned that they also experienced personal trauma through their family member's response at trying to cope after the war

On a more solid note, may of the survivor's children have become strong adults that have firm values against genocide and ethnic cleansing.  A value of fairness, compassion, and protection of others has been ingrained into many of the survivor's children's psyche.  While no two persons handle experiences the same, there have been many links that survivor’s children have experienced.  Some of the most significant reactions have been the sense of loss for relatives never having been known, feelings of severance from a part of their parent that was taken away by the situation, emotions distorted by parental perspectives that did not coincide with the perspectives of those not having lived through the Holocaust experience, and a strong need to live life to the fullest.