While those who have survived genocidal experiences have suffered a psychological trauma, malnutrition, restriction on hygiene and poor health conditions, researchers at the University of Haifa, Israel, did not expect their life expectancy to be increased.
The trauma experienced by these survivors affects their longevity, but not in the way scientists had imagined, they explain in a study published by the journal Plos One. For this work, they studied the case of 55,200 Polish Jews aged 20 in 1939. Of these, three-quarters survived the concentration camps while the remaining quarter managed to flee to Israel before the start of the war. .
To their surprise, the researchers found that concentration camp survivors live an average of 18 months longer than those who managed to escape. “Holocaust survivors have suffered unprecedented trauma. One would therefore think that they are weaker and that they tend to die earlier than the average”, wonders Abraham Sagi-Schwartz, the main author of this work.
Two hypotheses arise, according to the team of Israeli researchers: either the survivors have experienced post-traumatic growth, a phenomenon already observed in several cases of genocidal experiences, which arms them with a surplus of energy in order to face all the hardships they have to face. Either they survived the camps simply because they have a better constitution and a particularly strong personality. Researchers are wondering. And U.S. too.
