Helping Holocaust Survivors Find Relief
- Posted on:
- February 9, 2011
The nightmares continue for Magda Goodman. She still passes many nights caught in scenes of trying to run away, to hide, in the war-torn Budapest of her youth.
But for Goodman, 83, a Holocaust survivor living in Manhattan, there is welcome relief from the depression she used to experience, thanks to the work of a psychiatrist at Montefiore Medical Center that has grown into the Mental Health Services for Holocaust Survivors initiative, funded by UJA-Federation of New York.
“This was the first time I shared my experiences about the war with anyone,” Goodman said. “I’ve told my daughter, but it’s different because of the mother-daughter relationship. I can talk openly with Dr. Kennedy about any problem.”
Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of the division of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation, has expanded his work since the initiative launched in July to make mental-health services more widely accessible for Holocaust survivors.
Now doctors from Montefiore are working with agencies in UJA-Federation’s network — Selfhelp Community Services in the Bronx and northern Manhattan, the YM & YWHA of Washington Heights & Inwood, Samuel Field Y in Little Neck, and the Jewish Community Center of the Greater Five Towns — to make it possible to reach out to Nazi victims who need mental-health services.
“Often a survivor has a relationship with a community agency, and a social worker may notice a survivor has trouble with hygiene, managing finances, memory loss, or anger,” explains Dr. Kennedy. “The social worker who the survivor knows can say, ‘You might benefit from a visit by a doctor,’ which helps open the door for a psychiatrist to visit a survivor at home to assess their needs.”
The Importance of Listening
According to a report by Selfhelp Community Services’ Nazi Victim Services, the support of survivors is essential: the number of Holocaust survivors is declining, but effects of their advancing age require an increase in supportive services. More than 38,000 Nazi victims live in the New York metropolitan area.
The mental-health services initiative has now expanded to Maimonides Medical Center, another beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation that is collaborating with Bikur Cholim of Boro Park, Selfhelp, and YM-YWHA of Boro Park, also a beneficiary agency, to help survivors in Brooklyn.
For many years, society did not want to hear about what happened to survivors during the Nazi regime, Dr. Kennedy notes. “It’s only now that trauma can be discussed, but it’s up to the individual if they want to discuss it,” he explains.
“The mental-health professional’s role is to say, ‘If you want to talk, I want to listen,’ ” says Dr. Kennedy. “And often a mental-health professional can be open and inquiring in a way that family cannot.”
That careful listening and inquiry has made a dramatic difference for Goodman.
“I like to read novels, nonfiction, go to museums, the opera, concerts, and volunteer at Lincoln Center — I’m active,” Goodman says, and notes that she wasn’t active when she was in the full force of depression. ”I encourage people to take advantage of the services. It’s helpful to have someone to talk with about anything you want.”
Related Event
International Conference for Professionals Working With Holocaust Survivors
Tuesday, March 29 – Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sponsored by Selfhelp Community Services in collaboration with UJA-Federation of New York and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
For more information, contact