Bio of Eva Metzger Brown, Holocaust Child Survivor. Bibliography.

About Eva Metzger Brown:

Born in Fuerth/Nuremberg, Germany in July 1938, Dr. Brown and her parents fled Germany following Kristallnacht in November of the same year. They arrived in Paris, France where, a year later, her father was rounded up as a “foreign alien” and sent to a detention camp. Her mother and she moved to Angers, a smaller, hopefully safer town, which unfortunately became the target of a German bombing raid in June, l940. Both her mother and she were wounded and separated for four months – a long time for a not quite two year old. During this time Eva was hidden in a Catholic orphanage. After the collapse of France, the family was reunited in Toulouse, a miracle in itself. They made their way to Marseille where they learned they had made the German quota for entrance into the United States. After securing a boat and with some delays in Casablanca and Martinique, they arrived in America on August 6, l941.

The family settled in Queens, New York, home for many refugees. Dr. Brown graduated from Cornell University (l960) and Columbia University (l967), where she received her PhD in Clinical Psychology. She worked as a Research Associate at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA in the early 1970’s. Some years thereafter, she began a private practice in Amherst, MA and in the ‘80’s she founded and directed the project: Intergenerational Healing in Holocaust Families at the University of MA. She was also part of the first clinical/legal divorce mediation team in MA. She retired from practice after 30 years. Her specialties included: the trauma areas of divorce and the restructuring of family relationships post divorce, as well as, the issues of the impact of Holocaust silences and losses on Holocaust generations.

Dr. Brown continues to consult in the areas of breaking Holocaust silences in the Holocaust family and in the psychological community. She also facilitates intergenerational groups at the yearly meetings of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors Of The Holocaust (WFJCSH), and speaks in public school, college and synagogue settings. In addition, her professional time is spent writing on her understanding of therapy and the psychotherapeutic build up of trust so that Holocaust silences, treatment and intergenerational issues can be better understood and also applied to other traumatized groups. Her writings include personal narratives on her life.

Dr. Brown was awarded the Elise M. Hayman Award For The Study Of The Holocaust And Genocide by the International Psychoanalytical Association, July, 2009.

Dr. Brown and her husband established the “Metzger Brown Holocaust Remembrance Award” at the Amherst Regional High School in order to honor her parents, Ernest and Doris Metzger, both Holocaust survivors, and to remember those who died in the Holocaust. It is awarded to a senior who has written the best essay on the topic: Lessons From The Holocaust And Their Implications For Present Day Genocides.

Dr. Brown lives with her husband in western MA and is the mother of three and the grandmother of seven.

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Bibliographic Reference List:

Brown, E. M. (2006). Through the concrete wall. In M. I. Glassner & R. Krell (Eds.) And Life Is Changed Forever: Holocaust childhoods remembered. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne University Press.

Brown, E. M. (2007). A child survivor of the Holocaust comes out of hiding: Two stories of trauma. Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 4(2), 51-75.

Brown, E. M., Laub, D., Loew, C. & Richman, S. (2007). Roundtable Discussion: Last Witnesses: Child Survivors of the Holocaust (Moderated by S. Itzkowitz & M. V. Sussillo). Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 4(2), 1-50.

Brown, E. M. (2004). One step along my way. In A. C. Weiss (Ed.) Becoming A Bat Mitzvah: A treasury of stories. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press.

Brown, E. M. (1998). The transmission of trauma through caretaking patterns of behavior in Holocaust families: Re-enactments in a facilitated long-term second-generation group. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 68(3), 267-285.

Brown, E. M. (1998). Recovering memory. Lilith Magazine, 23(3), 16-17.

Brown, E. M. (1997). No memories at all. In A. Bogomolny (Ed.) New To North America: Writing by US immigrants, their children and grandchildren. New York: Burning Bush Publications.