What is it about?
Using longitudinal data from the Jerusalem Perinatal Study, we found that children born decades after the Holocaust to parents who were older than age five at the time of the initial Nazi persecutions faced elevated schizophrenia risk. While adjustment for sociodemographic factors diminished the association with paternal exposure, the over two-fold risk associated with maternal exposure remained significant even after accounting for the mother’s own psychiatric history and other social factors. The findings underscore how the timing of a parent's early-life stress can create a window of vulnerability that impacts the neurodevelopment of their future children.
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Why is it important?
Given the current state of hostilities and warfare regionally and globally, it is our professional duty to study their effects and to bring it to public awareness.
Perspectives
Our work could serve as a warning for both the public and global leaders. It underscores not only the immediate, devastating consequences of the escalating conflicts we see today, but also the profound, intergenerational burden these wars place on the future. A reminder that the true cost of conflict is measured across generations.
Hagit Hochner
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Schizophrenia in Offspring of Holocaust Survivors: Intergenerational Effects of Preconception Parental Trauma Within the Jerusalem Perinatal Study, American Journal of Psychiatry, June 2026, American Psychiatric Association,
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.20241145.
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