As the transmission of the trauma is not directly observable, it must be interpreted hermeneutically. Firstly relevant scenes or vignettes are selected and described phenomenologically. The subsequent analysis of these scenes follows the basic idea formulated by Lorenzer, "to understand all the material on the model of dream interpretation”. The transference and counter-transference processes which occur in the analytic work with Holocaust survivors and their descendants, play a central role. The transmission of trauma is investigated from working with survivors of the Holocaust and members of the Second and Third Generation. In each setting the analysts enter into a relational process. With "evenly hovering attention" they observe how the survivors shape the scenic memory of the Shoah. The decisive criterion for determining the character of such a scene is founded in the analysts' countertransference reaction: that is, when their feelings and fantasies indicate a "getting-in- touch" with the extreme trauma. This may be a hint of something catastrophically intolerable, a sense of annihilation, anxiety, pain, compassion, powerlessness, despair, hopelessness, senselessness, depression and mourning, but also bodily sensations such as shuddering, tears and paralysis. The inner eye may show images of menace and persecution from concentration camps; the inner experience is about surviving, self- or object-loss, about non-verbal expression of the place "where language cannot reach" (Hans Keilson). In the next step of the evaluation, the experts are involved in the investigation process. The expert supervision will be carried out by psychoanalysts and psychologists, sociologists and cultural studies specialists who are familiar with hermeneutic approaches and analytic methods. Following the model of psychoanalytic case-supervisions the clinical and non-clinical material will be worked on with the aim of achieving a consensual conceptualization of scenic trauma transmission in the various individual cases. If necessary several expert sessions will be held. F$15! The goal of the study consists in generating hypotheses from the empirical material about how and in what way, specifically in Germany, the extremely traumatic experiences of the Nazi extermination of the Jews are transmitted by survivors to the following generations. G$#.1/. : Dr. Kurt Grünberg Sigmund-Freud-Institut Myliusstraße 20 60323 Frankfurt/M
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