Thank you Ines for posting the article. It was very interesting. But I differ with your opinions about it:

"But at the end of the day I am forced to ask an even greater question. How about the Jewish refugees who were denied entry into the US during WWII and their descendants? Does this action entitle them to sue . . . the US government?"

Well, the entire world (with exceptions, like the Dominican Republic and Shanghai) denied entry to Jewish refugees, so the lawsuit would have to name almost every country that was a sovereign nation at that time...

"I have to ask myself whether such an action doesn’t do us more harm than good."

Why, because it would give Germans a reason to be anti-semitic? Give me a break.

"The assumption at play here is that the Holocaust surviving parents would have, in the absence of their experiences been able to lead full and well adjusted lives"

I think it is an extremely safe assumption that Holocaust survivors were all severely emotionally damaged in a way that they wouldn't have been in the absence of their experiences.

"Why, because it would give Germans a reason to be anti-semitic? Give me a break."

No, because it gives just about everyone in the world a reason to be anti-semitic.

The Germans responsible for the Holocaust are dead. The political system they built that created the Holocaust is dust. The economy they ran that fed and was fed by the Holocaust was bombed into oblivion, crushed under the treads of Shermans and T-34's, or carted off into the Urals. There is nothing left in Germany that can be said in any way to be responsible for the Holocaust. It's over. If "second generation" surivors are an issue, where does it end? Do the poor innocents who need consoling because their parents were second generation survivors also have a case? Third, forth, fifth, or X generation survivors?

And so now we have in the world spotlight a bunch of Jews suing to get money for psychotherapy. Good freaking lord, is there a more obvious example of living down to a stereotype? Of course this will promote anti-semitism, it is the very caricature of the image antisemites like to portray!

For the good of all of us, suck it up, let it go. You need therapy? Get in line, so does the rest of the world.

Ben

As a child of Holocaust survivors I am against this law suit and hope it doesn't succeed.

My reasons have little to do with fear of increased antisemitism. They have more to do with fear that all children of survivors will be seen as emotional cripples which we are not.

My siblings, most of my friends who are also children of survivors have lived meaningful and full lives without the assistance of shrinks.

I suspect that many of the people claiming that their mental condition is due to the lingering effects of the Holocaust would be seeking assistance even if they had grown up with parents who had never experienced these awful traumas.

This is of course pure speculation but I wonder if anyone has done a study to find out if the incidence of psychiatric care is higher among children of Holocaust survivors than among other sectors of the population traumatized by war and or natural disasters?

Studies do show that there is a higher incidence of psychiatric problems in second generation survivors. In the VA, I think we did pay for disabilities mindful to some extent of those who died young in terror, in pain for whom little more was given than a purple heart. Germany is the inheritor of German culture which had a terrible failure though not aided as it could have been in preventing it by other Western countries, by understanding of some of the Jewish elite around WWI, and the Vatican which really probably ought to pitch in though of course there is no UCFS (Union of Countries who failed to prevent the Shoah). It seems though if Soros or Bloomberg, Dell or Milliken or even Gates were to establish private funding to address the issue, people would understand and it would not be seen as favoritism.