Stress resilience, locus of control, and religion in children of Holocaust victims.

Two hundred eight children of Holocaust survivors who were born after their parents' Holocaust experience (children of survivors; COS) and 70 children of parents who left Europe after Hitler's rise to power in 1933 but managed to escape or avoid the Holocaust (children of escapees; COE) were recruited from various Jewish organizations. Research was conducted using questionnaires that were returned by mail. Measures of stress resilience (Kobasa, 1982; Kobasa & Puccetti, 1983), locus of control (Nowicki-Strickland, 1973), and religion (Jewish identity) were administered to all participants. The COS were found to have less resistance to stress and to identify less with feelings of being Jewish. The appropriateness of using COE as a control group and the difficulty of incorporating the unique experiences of the parents into a research study about the intergenerational transmission of coping style is discussed.