Survivors Guilt?

Following the Holocaust, many survivors questioned why they had been spared when so many of their family, friends, and neighbors had perished.  Similarly, survivors of other types of catastrophes (e.g., September 11th, 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami) also expressed feelings of guilt for having survived.  Why do you think people have this reaction?  Do you think such feelings influence how survivors go on to live their lives?  If so, how?.(Echoes and Reflections)

I think that the survivors of the Holocaust question their survival because they felt that they hadn't done something good enough during their time in the ghettos and concentration camps. They think that the other people that they knew, did do something to help more people in a better way. Other survivors from other tragedies may feel bad for living on for the same reasons, they may feel that they didn't do as well as the other people that had died during the tragedies. As The Sun Newspaper said (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/september-11-attacks/9530013/911-survivor-tells-how-he-surfed-15-floors-down-the-collapsing-tower.html) said,"Mr Buzzelli, 43, told The Sun newspaper that he had avoided speaking publicly until now because he found it hard to talk about his experiences and felt "survivor guilt" after losing 14 colleagues in the tragedy." I think that these feelings may influence the survivors lives as they live on because a lot of the time, guilt lives on as the person has these feelings that lives on. Questioning survival is a common thing for survivors of bad incidents because they are still in shock of all that had occurred and what will come because they were one of the people that had survived after some people didn't make it through the incident.