“Having to Keep Silent”: A Capabilities Perspective on Growing Up and the “Education Process” in a Migration Family

Abstract

When discussing the generation of war children (born shortly before or during World War II) and the impact of their posttraumatic stress on many families and intergenerational relational structures, Grundmann and Hoffmeister (2007, p. 272, translated) speak of a “pathological normality of keeping silent,” in this case, referring mainly to maintaining silence about what they had personally experienced. When discussing the remarkable silence of war children, these authors speak of a nonaccidental parallel between the speechlessness that emerges between the generations and the low public interest in these persons throughout almost the entire postwar period.