Monday, February 24, 2025, 11:30 AM – 1 PM EST
Marshall Duke
Charles Howard Candler Professor of Psychology Emeritus
Charles Howard Candler Professor of Psychology Emeritus“Family stories that were never told: What grandchildren of survivors know about what happened to their grandparents during the Holocaust”Since 2011, when he joined the interdisciplinary faculty group of the Emory Center for the Study of Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL) which was established and directed by his treasured colleague Bradd Shore of the Department of Anthropology, Marshall Duke (along with his psychology colleague, Robyn Fivush) has been exploring the power that family stories possess in building and maintaining psychological resilience in children and young adults. Duke and Fivush found that the more children know about their family histories, the more resilient they are. This finding made its way into the public domain through an article in the New York Times written by Times-columnist Bruce Feiler in 2013. On the tenth anniversary of the article’s publication, Feiler noted that this piece was the most read, requested and quoted of all of his columns to date. However, while the relationship between knowledge of family history and adjustment/ resilience has taken hold in the public consciousness, there are two groups for which the connection presents some anomalies. Grandparents who served in war time and served in combat are less likely to pass on their stories because they are painful and disquieting to tell and hear. Similarly, a majority of the survivors of the Holocaust were loathe to speak of their experiences either to their children or their grandchildren. Marshall will speak of his work (supported in part by an Emeritus College Heilbrun Grant) with the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and his effort to explore the anomalous finding that despite not knowing their family history, the majority of them appear to be psychologically resilient and well-functioning. He will describe the world-wide effort underway, generated by the grandchildren and some great-grandchildren, to learn as much as possible about what happened while there remain an ever-shrinking number of survivors. The grandchildren are the last living links to those who survived. Their stories will be the ones that will be sent forward to future generations.