© 2024 KALW 91.7 FM Bay Area
KALW Public Media / 91.7 FM Bay Area
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Crosscurrents

Exploring the science of inherited trauma

Photo by Judy Dater, resized and recropped
Author Elizabeth Rosner

ElizabethRosner’s parents both survived the Holocaust. Growing up she felt traumatized, even though she personally didn’t experience the camps. And when she talked to other children of survivors — not just of the Holocaust, but also of the Cambodian killing fields and the Armenian genocide — she realized she wasn't alone. She began studying the science of how trauma can also be handed down from generation to generation genetically.

 

ROSNER: We were born with these fears as if we had experienced the trauma ourselves.

Elizabeth Rosner's new bookSurvivor Café: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory comes out in September of 2017. 

Crosscurrents
Hana Baba is host of Crosscurrents, KALW's weeknight newsmagazine that broadcasts on KALW Public Radio in the San Francisco Bay Area.