Henry Grayman
Henry Grayman. My wife, Deborah, and I, co-facilitate the Second Generation (Children of Holocaust Survivors) Group in Vancouver, Canada. We both have a background in psychotherapy with children and families. My father, Abram Grajman, born in Lodz, Poland, survived 5-6 concentration/slave labour camps. Among many horrors, he witnessed the murder of his wife, Bella, and their two children, Lilly and Nadja. Rostock, Germany is where my mother was born. During the war, she was hidden in a convent in Berlin- she lost both her mother and father. My parents met at a dance put on by the Jewish community in Garmisch, Germany at an American base which became a quasi DP camp, in which I was born. In January of 1952, we arrived by UNRA boat to the port of Halifax, Canada. A train ride full of incidents, took us to Toronto, where I spent my formative years. Survival is relative term. While my father was now free in a new country, he suffered immensely both physically and mentally. At night, he would frequently cry out or scream. Yet the dogma of the Jewish community in Toronto in the 1950’s and 60’s was “Get on with your life, no one is persecuting you here.” PTSD had not been invented, until close to the end of the Vietnam War. Over many years, I have explored the impacts of growing up in a survivor household.