Montreal-Born Author Chronicles Four Generations of Holocaust Trauma in Powerful Memoir
Audrey Hyams Romoff, a Montreal-born author and communications professional, has published a deeply personal memoir that explores how Holocaust trauma has reverberated through four generations of women in her family. Her book, The Ripple Eclipse: Turning the Tide of Inherited Trauma, represents a courageous examination of silent suffering and its lasting psychological impacts.
A Life Split in Two
Hyams Romoff describes a pivotal moment in 2008 when her life "split in two." Following a Rosh Hashanah visit, her parents were found deceased together in their garage. This tragedy forced open what she calls a "massive steel door" containing her family's Holocaust history, which had been largely unspoken throughout her childhood.
The memoir centers on her mother Rachel (born Rutka) and grandmother Regina, who survived ghettoization, forced labor, and the Auschwitz concentration camp together during World War II. Their experiences, rarely discussed at home, profoundly shaped family dynamics across generations.
Unpacking Boxes and Uncovering History
The catalyst for documenting these stories came unexpectedly when Hyams Romoff was moving into a new house and confronted boxes shipped from Montreal fourteen years earlier. She had psychologically "banished these boxes from her thoughts" as a coping mechanism, but decided to face the past.
One photograph proved transformative: a black-and-white image of her parents dressed up and looking lovingly at each other. "And it sort of flipped my way of looking at things," said Hyams Romoff, who serves as president of Toronto-based communications firm OverCat.
Survival and Its Aftermath
Her grandmother Regina and mother Rutka experienced unimaginable horrors together in occupied Poland. Regina's husband Aaron helped the family survive in the Tomaszow Mazowiecki ghetto by bribing guards for advance warning of roundups and hiding his family in attics. Later in Auschwitz, Regina joined a network of mothers determined to keep their children alive.
After evading death marches by hiding under filthy blankets, they were liberated by the Soviet Red Army in January 1945. They passed through the Feldafing displaced persons camp in Germany, where Regina married widowed tailor Jack before obtaining visas to Canada.
The Manifestations of Inherited Trauma
In Canada, Rutka renamed herself Rachel and became a nurse, outwardly appearing as a well-integrated Canadian who avoided the "survivor" label. However, Hyams Romoff posits that generational trauma often manifests as what appears to be garden-variety neurosis.
Her mother managed latent trauma through excessive control: banning bicycles and unsupervised outings, fighting over hairstyles, clothes, and social activities. Hyams Romoff's own anxiety appeared early through ritualized behaviors, while her mother's comments about her appearance reinforced insecurities.
The author admits she herself became cruel at times, humiliating girls at camp and school, using meanness as armor against vulnerability. She frames this as an early lesson in how unprocessed pain can turn outward into aggression.
Triggers and Epigenetic Connections
Family travel exposed unresolved trauma triggers. At Disney World, her mother became overwhelmed by crowds and queues—years later connecting this viscerally to Nazi processing in death camps. Trains proved particularly triggering, with an overnight sleeper ride to New York unleashing memories of endless tracks to Auschwitz.
The book incorporates epigenetic research about Holocaust survivors, suggesting extreme stress might alter gene expression across generations. Hyams Romoff believes trauma's impact ripples outward, affecting children, grandchildren, and generations beyond, sometimes blanketing over happiness.
Returning to Poland
At the urging of Malcolm Brabant, co-author of The Daughter of Auschwitz, Hyams Romoff and her daughter Lindsay traveled to Poland for six days to retrace her family's steps. "I didn't really want to," she admitted. "I thought it would be too overwhelming for me to confront actually being there and see their experiences."
The journey revealed heartbreaking discoveries, including learning that her mother's father served in the Nazi-mandated Jewish police in the Tomaszow Mazowiecki ghetto. She also accessed unedited transcripts of Kinderlager: An Oral History of Young Holocaust Survivors, which featured her mother's reflections about Holocaust experiences.
At Auschwitz, seeing crematoriums, gas chambers, and housing units—even if not the exact ones where her family was held—provided visceral understanding of conditions where 900 people were crammed into buildings designed for about 100.
Recognizing Patterns and Finding Healing
Hyams Romoff now recognizes early warning signs of inherited trauma, including her complicated relationship with mirrors and body image. From age five, she insisted her legs looked fat in lace socks and demanded black tights she believed made her look thinner. In her forties, she dealt with body dysmorphic disorder, seeing only physical flaws in mirrors.
She came to view her mother not simply as a difficult parent but as "a child of Auschwitz, still living inside a fragile body whose panic, control and vanity were maladaptive survival strategies."
Hyams Romoff concludes that not everyone has the capacity to open up as she did, but those who can have a responsibility to share. "Maybe people will discover the strength to deal with the issues that they haven't necessarily dealt with, and even the strength to try to help other people," she said.
The Ripple Eclipse: Turning the Tide of Inherited Trauma (286 pages, $24.99) is available at Canadian bookstores and online retailers. The memoir expands the lexicon of silent suffering while offering pathways toward understanding and healing across generations.
