Rowman & Littlefield Publishers They Left It All Behind: Trauma, Loss, and Memory Among Eastern European Jewish Immigrants and their Children (New Imago)

This book explores the influence of historical events and intergenerational transmission of trauma on the psychological lives of pre-1924 Eastern European Jewish immigrants and their children. It explores disavowal of loss, homesickness, and anti-Semitic violence, as well as parents sacrifices and their childrens success. Review Hannah Hahn's book is an important document on the history of Russian Jewish immigrants who were victims of the late C19 and early C20 pogroms in Europe. Via contemporary research and the application of psychoanalytic insight she shows what the experiences are that run through three generations of migrants. This intergenerational analysis is important because she shows how deeply affected each generation is and how long it can take to overcome the multi-faceted trauma of migration. The book will help descendants of those families from this specific migration, but it is written in such a way as to reach out to current migrants and to underline the importance of understanding damaged and strained attachment relationships caused by the impact of both loss and gaining a new life. The book implores us to be more empathic toward the complex needs of migrants, in the spirit of "we were all migrants once" and which might help to ease the current climate of fear and suspicion surrounding migration.--Nigel Williams In this well-researched and beautifully written book, Dr. Hannah Hahn depicts how trauma associated with immigration is transmitted to future generations of children and their offspring. It has been said that people don't flee their homelands, leaving family, friends, community, language and cultural traditions, unless there are dire circumstances. In these immigrant families from Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century, their experience of poverty, discrimination, pogroms and hateful violence was palpable. And yet different people react differently - some hold on to their pasts, while others attempt to leave it behind in an effort to "forget," only to learn that it is not possible. The timeliness of this book cannot be underestimated. As the author highlights the impact of minimized and/or disavowed trauma and loss, it reminds us to encourage recent immigrants to share their experiences with their descendants.--Phyllis Cohen, director, The New York Institute for Psychotherapy Training in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence With compassion and insight Hahn tells the gripping stories of two generations: the Eastern European Jews who immigrated before 1924 and their children. Using material from her detailed interviews of this second generation, her discussion touches on issues including attachment and loss, memory, the impact of what is not spoken and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. This riveting, moving and informative account leads us to a deeper understanding of a timely topic, immigration and its effects.--Amy Schaffer PhD, Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy In this uncommonly vivid study of the experiences of Jews who fled Europe and came to America before 1930, Hahn, a psychoanalyst, weaves together historical events, incidents from the lives of her interviewees (who are the adult children of the immigrants) and moving accounts of the experiences of her own grandparents. Hahn takes us on a personal and theoretical journey, and challenges us to think about what it means to "leave behind" a homeland, family, language, culture, and all that is familiar. What is the inevitable legacy, in the lives of subsequent generations, that can't simply be "left behind?" This timely account will be invaluable to clinicians and others tasked with helping today's uprooted immigrants.--Sandra Buechler Ph.D, author of Psychoanalytic Approaches to Problems in Living Examining the narratives of her interview subjects through a psychoanalytic lens, Hannah Hahn has written a highly compelling and evocative account of how trauma and loss experienced in immigration--a