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59 year old Karen Sonneberg
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grew up on the north shore
of Long Island,
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just an hour's drive
from New York City.
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Her parents survived
the Holocaust,
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but rarely mentioned it.
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All I knew was that
we were different,
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that I was different.
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I didn't exactly know why.
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Her parents were Jewish,
born in Germany.
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After Hitler came to power,
their families fled.
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Sonneberg's parents
were just children,
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but carried the traumas
of Nazi oppression
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throughout their lives.
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My mother,
from the time she was 3, on.
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My father,
from the time he was 5 or 6.
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He was...
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subjected to...
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a painful existence
in Germany.
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Despite her own
comfortable upbringing
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here in the U. S.,
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Sonneberg privately
struggled for years
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with anxiety and stress.
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While she couldn't prove it,
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she believed it was
somehow linked
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to her parents'
traumatic childhoods.
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Having discussed this
with many of my friends,
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who come from
similar backgrounds,
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it seems to be
consistent in most of us.
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There were definitely
challenges, that
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"American kids"
didn't seem to have experienced.
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Even though you weren't there.
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Exactly.
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That's the amazing
part of it.
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Now, in a new study
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published this month
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in the scientific journal
"Biological Psychiatry"
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bolsters Sonneberg's belief
that she experienced
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the after-effects
of her parents' trauma.
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Dr. Rachel Yehuda,
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director of Mt. Sinai's
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Traumatic Stress
Studies division,
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led the study.
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Her team interviewed,
and drew blood,
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from 32 sets of survivors
and their children,
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focusing on a gene
called FKBP5.
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We already know
that this is a gene
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that contributes to risk
for depression
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and Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder.
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Yehuda noticed a pattern
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among the Holocaust survivors
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called an "epigenetic change."
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Not a change in the gene itself,
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but rather, a change
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in the chemical marker
attached to it.
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