Nationality Israeli | ||
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Born October 3, 1938 ( 1938-10-03 ) Haifa, Mandatory Palestine Died 4 September 2008, Tel Aviv, Israel Alma maters Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Books The Indescribable and the U, The Others Within Us, Tell Your Life Story, Furcht und Hoffnung | ||
Dan bar on interview
Dan Bar-On (Hebrew: דן בר-און; October 3, 1938 – September 4, 2008) was an Israeli psychologist, therapist, and Holocaust and conflict and peace researcher.
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Biography
Dan Bar-On was born in Haifa, British Mandate Palestine (part of modern-day Israel) in 1938. Both his parents had immigrated from Nazi Germany in 1933. Before the army, he attended an agricultural high school for two years. For 25 years he lived in Kibbutz Revivim in the Negev where he tended fruit trees, and studied behavioral sciences at Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beer Sheva, Israel. In 1975, he received his MA and worked as a therapist in the kibbutz clinic, specializing in work with families of Holocaust survivors and their children and doing research in this field of work. This later led to his book Fear and Hope: Three Generations of the Holocaust (1998).
In 1981, he received his PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and in 1983 he earned a Fulbright scholarship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA. He became a lecturer in behavioral sciences at BGU, and since 1996 was Professor of Psychology and held the David Lopatie Chair for Post-Holocaust Psychological Studies. Twice he was chosen to be Chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences. He retired in 2007.
In 1987, he travelled to Germany, interviewed children of Nazi criminals, and wrote Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich (1989). This book, first published in English, was translated into German, French, Hebrew, and Japanese. Some of Dan Bar-On's German research participants formed a self-help group who met on a regular basis. In 1992 he suggested that they meet with a group of Holocaust survivors. This became the group "To Reflect and Trust" (TRT) where children of Holocaust survivors and children of Nazi perpetrators met. Later, they expanded to groups in other conflict areas (South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Israel/Palestine).
He published several books on dialogue in conflict situations and worked for mutual understanding in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 1998, together with Palestinian Professor Sami Adwan, he founded and co-chaired PRIME: Peace Research Institute in the Middle East in Beit Jala in the Palestinian Authority Territory. In cooperation with six Israeli and six Palestinian school teachers, they prepared a school text book which contrasted Israeli and Palestinian views on recent Middle Eastern History and allowed students to learn the others’ views and insert their own. He also trained mediators for dialogue in conflict in different areas of the world.
He was married, a father of four, and a grandfather. He died in 2008.