Childhood adversity has been linked to adverse consequences on health, behavior, and interpersonal relationships among affected adults. Parental history of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) not only impacts their children's health and well-being but heightens the risk of perpetuating intergenerational patterns of trauma transmission (Schickedanz et al., 2021). However, an absence of studies examining the connection among parental history of ACEs, PTSD, and racial trauma, prompted the need for this study.

If the possibility of adequate psychological healing of historical traumas is not given, individuals affected can pass down its effects from one generation to another resulting in transgenerational trauma. While numerous studies focus on transgenerational trauma in Holocaust and indigenous survivors, few have explored the survivors of the 1938 Dersim Massacre. This study builds on preliminary research to better understand transgenerational trauma processes, aiming to prevent trauma transmission to future generations.

The main aim of this study was to investigate the long-lasting influences of World War II (WWII) trauma in a national sample of Poles, based on Danieli’s (1998) survivors’ post-trauma adaptational styles (fighter, numb, victim) and their link with current post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and embodiment level among participants. We also sought to investigate whether the level of knowledge about WWII trauma among ancestors could moderate that association.

Transcarpathia is a border and mostly mountainous region with a rather complex ethnographic and religious mosaic. It borders 4 countries (Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia), and geographically is the westernmost part of Ukraine. These factors contributed to the shape of a local multicultural population with fluid identities and very specific worldviews. The deepening of cultural ruptures is increased by regional historical memory, which shows the past in a way that is not described in the official historical grand narrative.