Holocaust Trauma Case Study

The client is Zuzanna Frankel, a widowed, 88 year old English-speaking Hungarian woman of Jewish faith. She lives alone in a rented one-bedroom NYCHA apartment in the Corsi Houses. She is a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to New York after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945. The client’s daughter, Ada, referred her to S&C because she is concerned about her mother’s overall health. Mrs. Frankel has mobility impairment and frequently falls due to arthritis and balance problems. She recently broke her right leg, during a fall-related incident, that required a rodding procedure. The client now uses a walker to ambulate inside and outside of her home, and receives outpatient physical therapy to improve her balance …show more content…
Frankel’s initial assessment, I conducted research on the effects Holocaust trauma. By reviewing her cohort history, I could envision the client’s world and circumstances from her perspective. Gitterman and Germain (2008) define this as “anticipatory empathy.” Holocaust survivors face new trauma in their final years, as they are overwhelmed by terrible memories they’ve successfully contained for nearly 75 years. In some cases, the return of these memories is due to aging-related issues. Although Holocaust survivors experience the same issues as other elder adults, the overlay of Holocaust survival creates a special situation. Survivors dealing with aging-related issues, such as falls, illness, surgery and death, can experience psycheomotional stress because they trigger memories of horrific violence. For others, it’s the result of what has been termed late-onset post-traumatic stress disorder, which brings on flashbacks, bouts of paranoia, and hyperarousal symptoms (Levine 2001). Institutional environments may also stimulate traumatic stress in survivors due to their memories of unethical medical experiments conducted in concentration camps. The key to working with a traumatized individual is the social worker’s ability to recognize the correlation between extensive adverse experiences and a range of physical and mental health problems. Prominent attention to the impact of trauma exposure provides social workers the competency to assess …show more content…
Frankel’s desire to return to her previous state of functioning indicates her resilience. Developing resilience is a personal journey. People do not all react the same to traumatic and stressful life events. An approach to building resilience that works for one person might not work for another. People use varying strategies. Some of the strategies that work for Mrs. Frankel include her ability to engage in the formulation of her care plan, ability to seek assistance and problem-solve, and her ability to manage strong feelings and emotions. Being resilient does not mean that a person doesn’t experience difficulty or distress. Emotional pain and sadness are common in people who have suffered major adversity or trauma in their lives. In fact, the road to resilience is likely to involve considerable emotional

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