New research suggests adult children of Holocaust survivors are more likely to worry about the threat of a nuclear Iran.
The team looked at how second-generation Holocaust survivors deal with the hostile-world scenario, which describes one's perception of threats to their life or mental integrity, Bar-ilan University reported.
The study looked at 106 people, 63 of which were born after World War II ended in 1945 and had parents who lived under a Nazi or pro-Nazi regime. The remaining participants were in the same age group, but their parents were not exposed to the Nazi regime.
The study showed the participants whose parents were Holocaust survivors had a greater preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear threat than the comparison group. Those in the Holocaust survivor group were more sensitive to the nuclear threat, and the more interest they had the higher their anxiety tended to be. The second-generation Holocaust survivors also tended to have a more ominous view of the world in general.
To back up their findings the researchers conducted a replication of the study made up of 450 participants, and found the results were the same.
"In second generation survivors we most often see that they are a group with resilience and mental resources, and they generally exhibit good functioning on a daily basis. But they do have vulnerabilities which can be manifested during times of stress," said study author Amit Shrira, of the Interdisciplinary Department of Social Sciences.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Psychological Trauma.
