War Stress in a Transgenerational Perspective, 1993

The purpose of the project was to investigate to what extent and in what way fathers' traumas can be passed on to the next generation. The starting point was research from the United States, Canada and Israel that had documented that the psychosocial effects of the Holocaust were transferred to the next generation after the war ended. The project aimed to shed light on similar phenomena with regard to Norwegian prisoners and their children's experiences. This was done by compairing survived Natzweiler prisoners and their children (born after 1945) to another group: Norwegian resistance fighters who were not in captivity and their children. Various dimensions like family relationships, physical and mental health, attitudes etc. were examined.