Decades after the Holocaust ended, its shadow continues to fall on the children of survivors — not through memory, but through biology and the invisible architecture of early experience. Researchers at Hebrew University have found that children born to mothers who were old enough to consciously experience Nazi persecution face more than double the risk of developing schizophrenia, even though they themselves were born into peacetime. The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, joins a growing body of evidence suggesting that severe trauma does not stay contained within a single
Hebrew University study links Holocaust survivor parents to elevated schizophrenia risk in offspring
Intergenerational psychological trauma affecting children of Holocaust survivors decades after persecution, with elevated mental health disorder risk.