Experiencing violence, rape, fear, death and loss of home greatly affects the life of a refugee generation. Families were torn apart. Sometimes relatives never got together again. Children died in the arms of their mothers and could not be buried in the haste of flight or because the ground was frozen.
Millions of refugees and displaced persons were left on their own to deal with such traumas. Many simply "functioned" and suppressed their experiences. Quite often mental burdens went unnoticed, caused illnesses or continued in the following generations. Many children have never come to terms with their war traumas.
What traumatised people need most is human attention and an open ear for what they have gone through. Appreciation of their life-shattering experiences helps to alleviate the pain they experienced. This applies to the refugees and displaced persons of yesterday as well as today.