Uncovering The Past, Honouring The Present: Audrey Hyams Romoff On Generational Memory & Healing

In early December, Toronto-based communications expert Audrey Hyams Romoff, 61, embarked on a life-altering journey to Poland with her daughter Lindsay, 32, to retrace their family’s Holocaust story. What began as a trip to honour their ancestors turned into a powerful reckoning with generational trauma—one that spanned four generations of women. Now, ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom HaShoah) on April 23, Audrey is opening up about the emotional discoveries she made abroad, the enduring legacy of survival, and how she’s channelling her experience into a forthcoming memoir that sheds light on the unspoken grief and resilience passed down through families like hers. —Noa Nichol

• What was it like to return to Poland with your daughter Lindsay, retracing your family’s Holocaust history decades after the events that shaped your lineage?

I was very apprehensive about going to Poland. It was a very difficult trip emotionally for both Lindsay and I, and I would not have had the strength to face it without her. I had never really confronted my family’s Holocaust background directly, and I was terrified of what I would not be able to “un see”. We visited the church in Tomoszow where the decision was made that my grandparents’ and mother’s lives were spared but 15,000 people from their town were deported to the Treblinka concentration camp. When the selections ended, only 900 people remained. We visited the apartment in the tenement house in the ghetto where nine members of my family lived in a one bedroom unit. But Auschwitz was the most horrifying. To imagine my mother, an eight-year-old child, living there was incomprehensible.

• You’ve described your relationship with your mother as complicated and volatile. How did uncovering her past in more depth impact the way you understand her—and yourself?

The most overwhelming feeling I came away with from the trip to Poland was that I was – I could have, and should have, been more empathetic to my mother. Of course, as a young child, I didn’t understand her erratic behaviour, but as an adult, I carried a lot of anger towards her. It is very complicated being raised by a parent who has been subjected to extreme trauma. My mother did not talk very much about the Holocaust. And she denied that it affected  her. She did not want to be defined as a “Holocaust survivor”. She did not want to be perceived as damaged. There was a book written about my mother in the late 1990’s but I felt she shared a very sanitized version of her past. Last year, I was given the unedited transcripts of my mother’s interviews for that book. It was the first time I found out details of what had happened to her. I also learned how much she struggled emotionally to distance herself from her past. She wanted to be a good wife and a mother. A functioning member of society who contributed to her community. But this lack of transparency about how she was struggling proved to be fatal. It’s hard to not think that things could have turned out very differently if she had shared her feelings. But I also understand that she did her best to make it through every day, until she couldn’t.

• Your mother was one of the youngest children to survive Auschwitz. Growing up, how was that history communicated to you, and how did it shape your early understanding of trauma?

I found out that my grandmother and mother were at Auschwitz when I asked my mother about the number tattoo on her left arm when I was 7 years old. I was told that they had been in the second world war. I knew my grandfather didn’t survive and that my grandmother’s entire family perished. I was never told specifics about my mother’s experience. A lot of the conflict with my mother arose around safety. I, of course, couldn’t really understand that when I was young. I wasn’t allowed to ski. I wasn’t allowed to ride a bicycle. When I was in my teens and my friends were heading out on their own, I wasn’t allowed to do that either, so I began lying to my mother about where I was. One of the most significant conflicts that we had was when I moved from Montreal to Toronto at 20. My mother simply could not accept that I had left her. At a Holocaust conference I attended recently, the topic of  leaving home was discussed. One child of a survivor had interesting insight. For children of the Holocaust, when someone left, it meant they would never return. I think that’s how my mother felt about me leaving home. Part of it was feelings of abandonment, but the other part was that she was worried that I had disappeared forever.

• You mentioned creating a façade of normalcy after your parents’ deaths. What finally helped you break through that silence and begin the healing process—both for yourself and your daughter?

My parents died during the Jewish High holidays. It became a very difficult time of year for me. Around ten years ago, Lindsay went to her father and said she was struggling at that time of year and wanted to talk to me about it, but was worried that she would upset me. I was mortified that I was so focussed on my own grief that I had failed to acknowledge hers. I spoke with her immediately about it and we shared our feelings. Since then, we talk about it very openly. We have also done individual therapy. My mother said in her interviews for the book written about her that some wounds never heal. That there is always scar tissue threatening to rip open. I think Lindsay and I can relate to that but we do not hide our feelings from each other which is significantly different than the relationship I had with my mother.

• What did it feel like to realize that, despite all your efforts, the trauma still echoed into the next generation with Lindsay? How have you worked together to process and reclaim your family’s story?

I never could have imagined that Lindsay would have to face the trauma that she has. It was so important to me to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma but when my parents died, I couldn’t protect her. I know that she will carry this trauma with her for the rest of her life, which is heartbreaking. When my parents died, she was constantly at my side. She had to grow up very quickly. Lindsay and I have a very tight bond. It wasn’t always the case but I think, at least I hope, that she can now share everything with me. Even things that she knows may upset me. We go on vacation together every year and we both cherish it. We have a lot of common interests and attend the ballet and rock concerts together. I am incredibly proud of the person that Lindsay has become. And she has been very supportive of the journey I am on. I would not be speaking publicly or writing a book if she didn’t want me to because it is her story too.

• In your view, what does intergenerational trauma look like—and why is it so important to speak about the ripple effects, especially as we lose more and more direct Holocaust survivors?

Trauma infiltrates your life, and I believe that has to be acknowledged. I know that some people cope by burying it, in my experience that can be dangerous. Trauma doesn’t have to dominate your life but, in a way, it has to be honoured. That you understand that you look at life differently. That you may have fears that other people don’t have. That you may have a darker view of the world. And that view can affect your children. That you may be inadvertently passing that on. It has been 80 years since the Holocaust, and for my family and other survivor families, it is still a part of our present.

• Your upcoming memoir explores inherited grief and resilience. What do you hope readers—especially those with no personal ties to the Holocaust—take away from your story?

While the Holocaust was the source of trauma in my family, trauma takes many shapes and forms. My hope is that anyone suffering from traumatic experiences, or supporting others who are living with trauma, can relate to my story. That they can understand that there are many other people struggling too. That there can be hope but getting to a better place is a battle.

• You’ve said that “the best we can do is walk beside the trauma.” What does that look like for you today, in your everyday life and relationships?

I have to accept that I will always live with a certain amount of pain. That what happened to my mother, and then my daughter and me, is firmly entrenched in who we are. We can still live wonderful lives but there is a part of us that will always hold the trauma. I sometimes think of it like being pregnant. You go on with your everyday life, but you are always conscious of it, it’s always circulating in your brain. I have found that one of the best ways to try to transcend that grief and trauma is to be grateful for what you do have. It is not something that comes naturally to me, I tend to focus more on the negative aspects of my life but I am making a choice to shift that.

• Yom HaShoah is a time to remember the past, but also to reckon with its ongoing impact. What does this day mean to you personally, and how do you honour it in a way that feels healing?

After my parents died, I made a conscious decision to stop participating in Jewish holidays and to block out anything to do with the Holocaust. When I cleared out my parents’ home, I had boxes of photographs sent to my house, where they stayed sealed for 14 years. And then we bought a new house and I forced myself to go through all those boxes. I discovered pictures of my parents looking so happy. There was so much more to my parents than the way they died. I decided that it was important to start honouring them and sharing my mother’s story. My first public speaking engagement was last year in conjunction with Holocaust Memorial Day.

• Why do you believe storytelling—particularly from second and third generations of survivors—is essential to Holocaust remembrance moving forward?

It is important to remember the suffering experienced by Holocaust survivors, and to understand the ramifications of long-term trauma. My mother was 8 years old when she was liberated from Auschwitz and 71 when she took her own life. That means my mother struggled and lived with her demons for 63 years. In that time, she became a nurse, she got married, she had children, she was part of a community. But she couldn’t outrun her past. And she couldn’t stop herself from letting that trauma spill over onto me. And when she died, the ripples of trauma continued. There are very few Holocaust survivors left but their stories live on in the books they have written, in Holocaust museums and initiatives like the Shoah project. Second and third generation survivors have their own complicated stories to share what it’s like to be raised by people whose survival is nothing short of miraculous and therefore the existence of their children is also miraculous. But how do these children balance that with the reality of the sometimes-turbulent households they were raised in?