The Ghosts of Nanking

Part Five of a Special Six-part series about the Forgotten Holocaust of WWII

Part Five: The pain of the past

By Jesse Horn

Conversation with renowned and groundbreaking psychotherapist and Associate Professor Armand Volkas MFA, MA, MFT, RDT/BCT and founder of the Healing the Wounds of History

“I stood gazing at the banks of Yangtze River in October 2009 watching an old, wrinkled Chinese man casting a line into the quickly moving muddy water,” explained Armand Volkas, who is an Associate Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and an Adjunct Professor at John F. Kennedy University. “Clearly a witness to the time of the Nanjing Massacre, I fantasized that the old man might be fishing for historical memory from the wide span of the majestic waterway, hoping to retrieve another missing piece of the story of Chinese victimization during the Sino-Japanese War.”

Professor Volkas is a renowned psychotherapist and the founder and director of the Healing the Wounds of History and Acts of Reconciliation projects. He is also founder of the Living Arts Counseling Center and Playback Theater Company, and has developed innovative programs using drama therapy for social change, conflict resolution, reconciliation, and intercultural communication.

In October of 2009 Professor Volkas was in the Chinese city of Nanjing, amid the walls where unimaginable atrocities were inflicted upon hundreds of thousands of citizens by the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army, nearly 72 years previously. As he stood and watched the fisherman, he reflected upon the significance of the area the old man was working. It has been reported that tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered by the invading Japanese Imperial Army on that very spot.

“They say the river ran red with blood during those days of carnage,” Professor Volkas continued. “Bound together with rope in large groups by the river for easy disposal, the victims were machine gunned en masse. The corpses then floated through the heart of the city of Nanjing further terrorizing the already traumatized populace. Thousands of Chinese men, women and children were murdered and up to 20,000 women and girls brutally raped and kept in sexual bondage.” This traumatic event has come to be known as “The Rape of Nanjing”.

The impact of this event has major ramifications that transcend generations. According to Dr. Yael Danieli’s International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma, the transgenerational transmission of trauma is a real phenomenon where the continuing destructive impact of slavery, rape or genocide is visible centuries after the original atrocities took place. It is equally possible for historical trauma to be transmitted from parent to child. Professor Volkas remarks that evidence in this phenomenon can be seen in a father’s alcoholism or depression being the direct result of unresolved PTSD derived from experiences in a war.

“The inheritor of such a legacy,” he explained, “receives the parent’s trauma as a burden of unexpressed grief, often out of their conscious awareness.”

The son of Auschwitz survivors and resistance fighters from World War II, Professor Volkas is no stranger to cultural and collective trauma. He was personally inspired by his own struggle to address issues of identity, victimization, meaning and grief, which arose from that legacy of historical trauma, and began working to help others do the same.

“In my journey to reconcile my own past as the son of Jewish WWII resistance fighters and survivors of Auschwitz concentration camp, I have sought to understand how nations and cultures integrate a heritage of perpetration, victimization and collective trauma. I have endeavored to comprehend how collective trauma is passed from generation to generation. I have also committed myself as a psychotherapist to developing an arts oriented approach to working with intercultural conflict resolution in which collective trauma plays a primary role.”

Professor Volkas founded the Healing the Wounds of History project as a way to help participants work through the burden these historical traumatic events can create by transforming their pain into constructive action. Professor Volkas’s work has aided victims and perpetrators in countless worldwide conflicts and received international recognition.

“Considering the number of seemingly intractable intercultural conflicts that plague the world,” he continued, “it is critical that we find innovative ways to address the impact that this trauma has on the personal and collective psyche. The techniques of drama and expressive arts therapy, with all of their transformative potential, are powerful tools in moving towards ending the cycle of re-traumatization and perpetration.”

Psychodrama, created in the 1920s by Jacob Levy Moreno, and drama therapy are at the core of his project and uses theatre techniques that aid in a wide variety of settings and is typically aimed to facilitate and foster therapeutic personal growth, and promote health. Healing the Wounds of History, which is produced through the Center for the Living Arts (a nonprofit organization dedicated to the use of drama and creative arts as tools for social change and personal growth) utilizes this form of therapy successfully as its core. Under Professor Volkas, the program has brought together Germans and Jews; Palestinians and Israelis; Japanese, Chinese and Koreans; African-Americans and European-Americans, all through the premise that there is no political solution to intercultural conflict until we understand and take into consideration the needs, emotions and unconscious drives of the human being.

In October of 2009 Psychology Professor Kuniko Muramoto, Ph.D. from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan set out to organize an encounter between Japanese and Chinese students from the fields of psychology, history, education, and peace studies. They would come together in the Chinese city of Nanjing, and would begin a process of psychological and emotional reconciliation and healing facilitate by Armand Volkas.

As an American and outsider to both Japanese and Chinese cultures he would be in a unique position. Not only would he need to assist in a four day exploration into not only bridging taboos and opening to each other across cultural differences, but finding a way to give each of the participants of the exorcize the ability to grieve.

“Each traumatized group has a need to experience their inherited pain as unique.” Professor Volkas stated. “Participants in Nanjing, as representatives of their cultures, were given the opportunity to give shape and expression to their collective grief, the principle being that, until that pain of the Massacre of Nanjing is grieved fully, the legacy of trauma will continue to be passed on to the next generation.”

Professor Volkas expressed that fundamentally the Healing the Wounds of History project is about teaching empathy.

“Workshop participants developed the capacity for feeling compassion for the pain of the other group and transcend the impulse to view one’s own suffering as superior. This helped to create the double binds that participants had to resolve. How can I hate this person and have empathy for him or her at the same time?”

In next week’s part six and conclusion of our series, we continue the conversation with Armand Volkas and his work in Nanjing. We will learn about the obstacles facing the victims and perpetrators, as well as the facilitators.

It is important to note that from the marking of our first part in this series, which also serves as a clock signifying the time frame Nanjing was under siege, those who had to live through this unspeakable nightmare would be entering their fifth week. At this point tens of thousands have died senseless, cruel, and horrific deaths. There would be family’s whose lives would be devastated for generations to come, and horrors that would echo through the darkest halls of history.


The Ghosts of Nanking Part Five of a Special Six-part series about the Forgotten Holocaust of WWII Part Five: The pain of the past By Jesse Horn Conversation with renowned and groundbreaking psychotherapist and Associate Professor Armand Volkas MFA, MA, MFT, RDT/BCT and founder of the Healing the Wounds of History “I stood gazing at the banks of Yangtze River in October 2009 watching an old, wrinkled Chinese man casting a line into the quickly moving muddy water,” explained Armand Volkas, who is an Associate Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and an Adjunct Professor at John F. Kennedy University. “Clearly a witness to the time of the Nanjing Massacre, I fantasized that the old man might be fishing for historical memory from the wide span of the majestic waterway, hoping to retrieve another missing piece of the story of Chinese victimization during the Sino-Japanese War.” Professor Volkas is a renowned psychotherapist and the founder and director of the Healing the Wounds of History and Acts of Reconciliation projects. He is also founder of the Living Arts Counseling Center and Playback Theater Company, and has developed innovative programs using drama therapy for social change, conflict resolution, reconciliation, and intercultural communication. In October of 2009 Professor Volkas was in the Chinese city of Nanjing, amid the walls where unimaginable atrocities were inflicted upon hundreds of thousands of citizens by the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army, nearly 72 years previously. As he stood and watched the fisherman, he reflected upon the significance of the area the old man was working. It has been reported that tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered by the invading Japanese Imperial Army on that very spot. “They say the river ran red with blood during those days of carnage,” Professor Volkas continued. “Bound together with rope in large groups by the river for easy disposal, the victims were machine gunned en masse. The corpses then floated through the heart of the city of Nanjing further terrorizing the already traumatized populace. Thousands of Chinese men, women and children were murdered and up to 20,000 women and girls brutally raped and kept in sexual bondage.” This traumatic event has come to be known as “The Rape of Nanjing”. The impact of this event has major ramifications that transcend generations. According to Dr. Yael Danieli’s International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma, the transgenerational transmission of trauma is a real phenomenon where the continuing destructive impact of slavery, rape or genocide is visible centuries after the original atrocities took place. It is equally possible for historical trauma to be transmitted from parent to child. Professor Volkas remarks that evidence in this phenomenon can be seen in a father’s alcoholism or depression being the direct result of unresolved PTSD derived from experiences in a war. “The inheritor of such a legacy,” he explained, “receives the parent’s trauma as a burden of unexpressed grief, often out of their conscious awareness.” The son of Auschwitz survivors and resistance fighters from World War II, Professor Volkas is no stranger to cultural and collective trauma. He was personally inspired by his own struggle to address issues of identity, victimization, meaning and grief, which arose from that legacy of historical trauma, and began working to help others do the same. “In my journey to reconcile my own past as the son of Jewish WWII resistance fighters and survivors of Auschwitz concentration camp, I have sought to understand how nations and cultures integrate a heritage of perpetration, victimization and collective trauma. I have endeavored to comprehend how collective trauma is passed from generation to generation. I have also committed myself as a psychotherapist to developing an arts oriented approach to working with intercultural conflict resolution in which collective trauma plays a primary role.” Professor Volkas founded the Healing the Wounds of History project as a way to help participants work through the burden these historical traumatic events can create by transforming their pain into constructive action. Professor Volkas’s work has aided victims and perpetrators in countless worldwide conflicts and received international recognition. “Considering the number of seemingly intractable intercultural conflicts that plague the world,” he continued, “it is critical that we find innovative ways to address the impact that this trauma has on the personal and collective psyche. The techniques of drama and expressive arts therapy, with all of their transformative potential, are powerful tools in moving towards ending the cycle of re-traumatization and perpetration.” Psychodrama, created in the 1920s by Jacob Levy Moreno, and drama therapy are at the core of his project and uses theatre techniques that aid in a wide variety of settings and is typically aimed to facilitate and foster therapeutic personal growth, and promote health. Healing the Wounds of History, which is produced through the Center for the Living Arts (a nonprofit organization dedicated to the use of drama and creative arts as tools for social change and personal growth) utilizes this form of therapy successfully as its core. Under Professor Volkas, the program has brought together Germans and Jews; Palestinians and Israelis; Japanese, Chinese and Koreans; African-Americans and European-Americans, all through the premise that there is no political solution to intercultural conflict until we understand and take into consideration the needs, emotions and unconscious drives of the human being. In October of 2009 Psychology Professor Kuniko Muramoto, Ph.D. from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan set out to organize an encounter between Japanese and Chinese students from the fields of psychology, history, education, and peace studies. They would come together in the Chinese city of Nanjing, and would begin a process of psychological and emotional reconciliation and healing facilitate by Armand Volkas. As an American and outsider to both Japanese and Chinese cultures he would be in a unique position. Not only would he need to assist in a four day exploration into not only bridging taboos and opening to each other across cultural differences, but finding a way to give each of the participants of the exorcize the ability to grieve. “Each traumatized group has a need to experience their inherited pain as unique.” Professor Volkas stated. “Participants in Nanjing, as representatives of their cultures, were given the opportunity to give shape and expression to their collective grief, the principle being that, until that pain of the Massacre of Nanjing is grieved fully, the legacy of trauma will continue to be passed on to the next generation.” Professor Volkas expressed that fundamentally the Healing the Wounds of History project is about teaching empathy. “Workshop participants developed the capacity for feeling compassion for the pain of the other group and transcend the impulse to view one’s own suffering as superior. This helped to create the double binds that participants had to resolve. How can I hate this person and have empathy for him or her at the same time?” In next week’s part six and conclusion of our series, we continue the conversation with Armand Volkas and his work in Nanjing. We will learn about the obstacles facing the victims and perpetrators, as well as the facilitators. It is important to note that from the marking of our first part in this series, which also serves as a clock signifying the time frame Nanjing was under siege, those who had to live through this unspeakable nightmare would be entering their fifth week. At this point tens of thousands have died senseless, cruel, and horrific deaths. There would be family’s whose lives would be devastated for generations to come, and horrors that would echo through the darkest halls of history.