Polish Family War Stories: Perpetuating and Healing Intergenerational Trauma

SYNOPSISObjective. This study explored the types of war stories Polish families tell and the lessons family members learn from these stories. Design. Polish adults (n = 32) were interviewed about their intergenerational family stories. Interview transcripts were analyzed using narrative thematic analysis. Results. Analyses revealed four types of war stories—survival stories, hero stories, tragedy and loss stories, and missing stories—and four lessons learned from these stories—how to live, how to be Polish, how to cope, and how to understand others. Conclusions. Findings advance narrative scholarship by integrating communicated narrative sense-making theory with the ecological systems model of family narratives. In so doing, we highlighted how macro-system meanings, values, and beliefs emerged in these family stories. Findings also show the presence and effect of silencing in intergenerational family storytelling.