Descendants of Nazi Perpetrators: Seven Years after the First Interviews

Abstract

Numerous publications describe the original sample of descendants' of Nazi perpetrators in Germany: the silencingby both their families and the German society of their parents' participation in the extermination process during the Third Reich, their working-through process, the 'double wall" phenomenon between them and their parents, the logic of the descendants' moral arguments, their parents' paradoxical morality, the descendants' identification and pseudoidentification with the victims (Bar-On, 1989a, 1989b, 1990a, 1990b, 1991b; Bar-On & Charny, 1992; Bar-On & Gaon, 1991; Rosenthal & Bar-On, 1992). In addition, several television programs and journalists have interviewed the German self-help group that evolved as a by-product of this study.2 The present aiscussion is a follow-up of that study, 712 years after the initial interviews took place, and concentrates on three perspectives: (1) The perspective of the German interviewees: In what way did the numerous interviews, the group work, or both affect their life perspective? (2) the positive and negative roles of the media in this process; and (3) the role of the author as interviewer, participator, observer.