On The Issues Episode 87: Wiola Rębecka

On the Issues with Alon Ben-Meir

Today’s guest is Wiola Rębecka, a psychoanalyst, human rights activist, founder of “Rape: A History of Shame” project, and author of the book Rape: A History of Shame: Diary of the Survivors. A credentialed psychoanalyst, she has over 23 years’ clinical experience working with trauma, PTSD, War Rape Survivors Syndrome, and transgenerational trauma, and has conducted field work on the consequences of sexual violence during war in Rwanda, Congo, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. In this episode, we discuss transgenerational trauma, particularly in relation to sexual violence, societal reactions to rape and rape victims, the difficulties of sharing experiences on a personal and cultural level, and her family’s personal experience with sexual violence and transgenerational trauma stemming from her grandmother’s experience during the Holocaust.