The effects of genocides are passed from generation to generation because of the trauma that it causes, which is likely to be passed genetically. A recognized research team, led by Rachel Yehuda, made a study of Holocaust survivors that suggests that trauma has a high probability of being passed on to children´s genes, the study was made on 32 Jewish who had either been interned in a Nazi concentration camp, experienced torture or who had to hide during the second world war. They also analyzed the genes of their children, who are known to have increased likelihood of stress disorders, and compared the results with Jewish families living outside of Europe during the war. This work is the clearest example, in humans, of the transmission of a trauma to a child via what is called "epigenetic inheritance"- the idea that environmental influences such as stress can affect the genes of children and possibly even grandchildren.
