The silence creates a wall between parent and child that is very difficult to abolish. An example might be somebody who watched his own father enter the crematoria, or a mother who saw her baby been thrown against a wall. Often the first generation cannot understand that their own traumas caused the problems of the child. There are no second-generation problems, they would say, generational differences are the same in all times in all families. This is true in a way.
Mutual understanding is blocked through the generational gap and also by cultural differences.
However in Survivor families these are always deepened by the shadow of the Holocaust. Difficulties in communication between old and young are the same within all cultures, while the cultural gap is present in all immigrant families. Children growing up within the culture of the new country, while the parents still dwell in the culture of the old one, present problems. Words and conceptions have different connotations in different countries, which either parent or child is aware of- such as shame, guilt and respect. In Eastern Europe and France, the behaviour of a person is regulated by the acceptance or non-acceptance of his surroundings.