tamach: What was Tamach?

What was TAMACH?

Tamach was the first and only counseling center in Switzerland that offered psychosocial support for Holocaust survivors and their families in the form of counseling and psychotherapy, workshops, and telephone support. Most Holocaust survivors had suffered severe trauma. Members of the Second Generation, as the children of survivors are called, also suffered from the effects of the persecution. The parents’ trauma had been handed down to the children, and today increasing numbers of the Second Generation were seeking expert advice in the form of individual and group therapy.

Tamach was also very much involved in public information work in connection with the Shoah through offering lectures, memorial events, educational services and training specialized personnel (psychologists, doctors, nurses and care-givers and teachers).

The Tamach counseling center was founded at the end of 1997 and was a registered association. The counseling center’s focus is on the psychosocial needs of Holocaust survivors and their families.

Treatment centers that work with traumatized Holocaust survivors and their children had existed in various countries for the last twenty years, e.g., Israel/Amcha, Austria/Esra, Holland/Sinai Center). The founding of the Tamach counseling center, which occurred during the “Holocaust Discussion” of the mid-1990s in Switzerland, was conceived as a way to fill a much-needed role for the survivors living here. You can find here further informations about the activity of Tamach.