1. MY JOURNEY
FROM THE HOLOCAUST
TO THE PREVENTION
OF MALIGNANT PREJUDICE
by Henri Parens

4. What happened
to my World……

5. Two Transports – Summer 1942
June ~1, 1942: OSE Convoy #3 leaves Marseille,
destination: New York
two months later,
August 14, 1942: French Convoy #19 leaves Drancy (Paris),
destination: Auschwitz

6. June ~1, 1942: OSE Convoy #3 leaves Marseille;
June 25, 1942: OSE Convoy #3
arrives in New York, Ellis Island

7. Passengers - Casablanca to New York Sailed “Serpa
Pinto” Jun7,1942
ACCOUNT U. S. CHILDREN COMMITTEE
No. Name First Age
Passage HT$
--------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------
1.BERNEY Hannelore 12
11,000.- 8.-
2.BOLESLAVSKY Henri 12
11,000.- 8.-
4.CHIRMAN Savelly 13
11,000.- 8.-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------
Transport arrived
New York
On June 25, 1942
I am No. 42 on list
(Birth Certificate name).

8. two months later,
August 14, 1942: French Convoy #19 leaves Drancy
(northeast suburb of Paris),
destination: Auschwitz

10. How Have I Come to Where I Am?
La condition humaine,
that we suffer, and that we humans
create much of that suffering ourselves,
has pre-occupied me
from the time of my youth.
I have especially searched
in my field – in Mental Health –
for ways to explain why,
and to find ways to get us to stop,
causing avoidable suffering to others.

11. Unconsciously, this is the path I followed:
Studying The Influence of Parent-Child Relatedness on
the Development of the Child,
we found many opportunities for parents
to derail or to optimize their children’s development.
These findings led us to work with them –
to help parents optimize their child rearing.
The parents became eager Students of Child Rearing.
And they pushed us to promote parenting education.
As a result we developed educational materials that aim at
Parenting – to Achieve Optimal Emotional Growth.
I have wondered:…Was my “interest in helping
mothers”
driven by my wanting to rescue my
mother?
Or was it to atone for not having stayed with
her?
Not having prevented her
murder?

12. Our studies also drove me to study Aggression –
How It Develops and How it Is Shaped in Each of Us.
In this study I found The Critical Equation: that
Intense Psychic Pain  Hostility & Hate
In time, our aggression studies opened a critical door:
Combining Parenting Education &
How Aggression Develops
 Prevention of Violence via Parenting Education.
The next step was –
The Prevention of Malignant Prejudice

13. The Newborn
is pre-wired to attach
Who are those
Who am I?
who care for me
Stranger Anxiety
Identification
with my Caregivers
My Caregivers Strangers
Benign prejudice
H. Parens, 2004

14. THE DEVELOPMENT OF BENIGN PREJUDICE
The Newborn
is pre-wired to attach
Who are those
Who am I?
who care for me
Stranger Anxiety
Identification
with my Caregivers
My Caregivers Strangers
Benign prejudice
H. Parens, 2004

15. Individual Trauma Group
Societal
Inborn dispositions Individual Institutionalized
Event-dependent
Developmental Home, School, Terrorism, Massacres fundamentalism
conflicts Community Chronic
War, Economic Stress
Revenge
High-Level Education
Hostility further forges identification
& Hate All forms of extremism;
ethnic, religious,
nationalist Group process
Individual process Communal Ucs
Benign Prejudice high level
Defenses Mechanism: hostility & hate
Simple Defenses Mech.:
(displacement, denial,
projection, splitting, etc. &
Simple &
Reality-distorting cluster Reality-distorting
cluster;
Revenge
Revenge
Malignant Prejudice
H. Parens, 2007

16. FROM BENIGN TO MALIGNANT PREJUDICE
Individual Trauma Group
Societal
Inborn dispositions Individual Institutionalized
Event-dependent
Developmental Home, School, Terrorism, Massacres fundamentalism
conflicts Community Chronic
War, Economic Stress
Revenge
High-Level Education
Hostility further forges identification
& Hate All forms of extremism;
ethnic, religious,
nationalist Group process
Individual process Communal Ucs
Benign Prejudice high level
Defenses Mechanism: hostility & hate
Simple Defenses Mech.:
(displacement, denial,
projection, splitting, etc. &
Simple &
Reality-distorting cluster Reality-distorting
cluster;
Revenge
Revenge
Malignant Prejudice
H. Parens, 2007

17. MALIGNANT PREJUDICE
TOWARD ITS PREVENTION*
What can each of us do so that in this world pregnant with threats
at least this threat … [of a return to] the concentration camp world
… will be nullified?”
Primo Levi
The Drowned and the Saved
“Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages”
George Washington
Written during the bleak early days of the Revolutionary
War
*H. Parens 2006

18. HOW CAN WE REDUCE MALIGNANT PREJUDICE?
Hostility and hate in each of us
is experience-dependent (Parens, 1979, 1999, 2006).
This means that
the accumulation of HL-H&H
in each of us can be reduced!
“High-Level Hostility & Hate”
is the motivating force that leads to
crime and malignant prejudice.

19. Intentional trauma
is the largest generator of HL-H&H in each of us.
INDIVIDUAL TRAUMA
AT HOME (the source of most-hurtful trauma):
To Prevent Child Neglect and Child Abuse:
Parenting Education: e.g., Parenting for Emotional Growth:
3 Educational Strategies (Parens et al. 1997).
IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD:
To Prevent Traumatization in Schools:
Anti-bullying programs such as “Creating A Peaceful
School Learning Environment…Intervention
to Reduce Violence” (Twemlow, S.W. et al. 2001).
SOCIETAL TRAUMA
Intentional Trauma is sure to generate Malignant Prejudice.

20. EDUCATION THAT FOSTERS MALIGNANT PREJUDICE
While HL-H&H is the factor that leads to malignant prejudice,
there is a large pathway to malignant prejudice that may
by-pass the individual’s own accumulated HL-H&H:
EDUCATION,
the abuse and dishonoring of education.
Education can instruct HL-H&H toward others and
directly converts benign into malignant prejudice.
In this way, Education transmits to the child
its national, ethnic and/or religious collective HL-H&H.

21. Education that Prescribes Malignant Prejudice:
Militant Ethnic & Political Extremism and
Militant Religious Fundamentalism
EFFORTS AT REDUCING MILITANT EXTREMISM
1. Prevention efforts at the United Nations: combating racism.
2. Ethnic/religious group efforts toward peaceful coexistence
have been set in motion by differing faiths and ethnicity.
Of late these seem to be gaining momentum.
3. Prevention via educating children for peace and coexistence.
The Middle East collaboration between Israeli, Israeli Arab,
and Palestinian educators (Klang-Ma-oz, 1997;
Bar-on, Sagy, Awwad, and Zak, 1997; Awwad, 1997).

22. KEY OBSTACLES THAT STAND IN OUR WAY
The Janus Dilemma:
Our largest problem is that
what the victim experiences as a crime against humanity,
the perpetrator experiences as an act of valor, of honor.
BUT, it is society that declares this valuation, not the individual.
It is society’s challenge to solve this difficult problem, this
Janus dilemma.
Required changes within each of us:
Who am I if the other is not my enemy?
In the Middle East, Dan Bar-on et al. (1997) found that
this question applies to both Israelis and Palestinians.
We have to stop relying an “evil other” to be ourselves.

23. As I said in Renewal of Life – Healing from The Holocaust:
“We must not let it happen to us again.
We must not make it happen to others.
We must not be victims, and
We must not be perpetrators.
We must learn
To live together
With our differences”
(Parens, 2004, p. 271).