Practice Issues: Understanding Aged Holocaust Survivors

Abstract

The new regulations throughout Europe concerning increased reparations for Holocaust survivors and the recent opportunities for restitution from Swiss banks have resulted in renewed interest in the situation of aged Holocaust survivors. Understanding the special needs of aged survivors is essential to providing services and the supportive evidence needed for the receipt of financial compensation. Although survivors now seek the help of social workers for practical reasons, the process is charged with painful and horrifying memories. Practice with survivors must address these feelings. In addition, survivors are coping currently with the losses attendant to aging in a context which includes the suffering for themselves and their adult children still directly related to the Holocaust experience. Social workers will likely serve aged survivors and their families in senior programs, hospitals, and nursing homes and must consider the practice issues related to this population.