| Summary: | Much has been written about psychopathology of Holocaust survivors and the transmission of this terrible trauma to their offsping. The purpose of this article is to discuss this two points: 1) The complex, articulated and sometimes contradictory elements that emerge from the scientific and clinical literature, that is if all the Holocaust survivors are traumatized and to what extent. An examination of the literature seems to show two different Groups: the one of those “self-referred” who have actively asked for help or for psychological support or with clear mental illness, and the one of those who have not seeked help or manifested clear mental illness. The two different populations (“clinical” or “systematic selected by the empirical research”) can explain the different results of the evaluation of the effects of the trauma; 2) The developmental sequelae of Trauma across Generations. About this second point on the transmission of trauma, the proposal of the Authors relates to the integrative, multifactorial, point of view that includes psychodynamic, sociocultural, family system, biological and attachment perspectives, which explains that the trauma itself is not directly “passed on” to second and third generations, but mitigating or aggravating factors can modulate the sequelae of the transmission.
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