Emily Wanderer Cohen's memoir is therapeutic literature for the descendants of people who have suffered historical trauma. (That is, for us, since after the 20th century full of bloody and traumatic events, we are all like that, with few exceptions.) The author bravely breaks an important taboo with lean honesty, but also with great compassion, and reveals to us how the did not work traumas.

It shows how, as a child, he had to suppress his feelings in order to endure the abuse, following the implacable anger and desperate beatings of his Holocaust survivor mother. In other words, the exact same thing happened to her, which happened to her mother in the concentration camp in the past, who separated herself from her own feelings in order to survive the ordeal. Punch after punch, yearning in vain for protective love, terrified of unpredictable maternal reactions, Cohen himself became a traumatized adult and carried on the difficult family legacy.

Of course, it is not necessary for the abused to become an abuser himself. There are places where the silence and secrets of the far-reaching past build a wall between family members, make emotional closeness impossible, and create an unfathomably oppressive atmosphere. In order to heal and break the chain of trauma, it is necessary to step out of the barriers raised by fear and open the safe spaces of storytelling. Let's tell or write our story so that we can understand the important connections and finally be free. The author of the volume provides inspiration for this with his own example and questions to help with processing.