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Male survivors of the Jewish Holocaust lived longer than peers of the same age who escaped Europe before the war. The research, published by the U.S.-based Public Library of Science, compares the lives of 55,000 Polish Jews who emigrated to Israel before and after the war. What it discovers is that men who lived through the Holocaust as boys or young men lived as much as 18 months longer than those who didn't. (source)
The health of the survivors was worse than the health of those who evacuated, yet they lived longer. It is clear that the physical damage was real — but it seems that these men wanted to live longer, and so they did.
Why? I believe that Holocaust survivors live longer because they feel a deep and desperate need to make their lives worth something. Having a positive purpose to one’s existence literally gives one a reason to live.
Being reminded of our mortality should be a spur to positive action. But it isn’t, not necessarily. Faced with death, man is at least equally likely to choose to check out. All around us, people are forsaking marriage and children — even mutilating their bodies so that they can preclude any future in which they would even be able to create new life. This lost generation has Bucket Lists and seeks to have “fun,” while they “live in the moment,” enjoying “my best life,” looking out for Number One at all times.
The world has the feel of a satanic fairground, with laughter and fun only as a patina over loneliness, misery, and deep fear. Because, ultimately, death comes for us all. And what will we leave behind to show for having lived? People are so afraid of even hearing the question that they lock themselves away from it.
Life is fleeting. Every moment can be — should be — precious. We have a choice.
Mankind has enormous potential. We can create music and words that stir the soul, marriages that leave a mark far beyond a single lifetime, and create and foster a sense of hope that changes humanity from an intelligent but foolish animal into a holy people that walk in the ways of G-d.
Alas, man is perverse. This is not new.
The powerful men saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took them wives of all whom they chose.
Society accepted that power could do what it wanted. Might Made Right.
G-d’s reaction was to reduce man’s lifespan:
And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always contend within man forever, for that he also is flesh: and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.
G-d clearly thought that when faced with mortality, man would value women more (just as Adam only named Eve when he realized she was the path to his own perpetuation). He probably also reckoned that mortality might remind us that no dead person is mighty and that there are other things to do with one’s life besides seeking to dominate others. In other words, G-d acted to fix our behavior by trying to bring a sense of perspective to our existence.
If that is what G-d thought, He got it wrong. Don’t take it from me: take it from the Torah (Gen. 6).
Instead of being kind to women and abandoning brutality, mankind followed the same path we are heading down now: they chose more of the same, more violence and violation. More apex predator behavior, survival of the most murderous. The world passed beyond the point of being salvageable. G-d throws in the towel on tweaking the incentives. Instead, He brings the Flood, washing almost all life away, to start anew. Rinse and Repeat, with a different sourdough starter in Noah instead of Adam.
We are facing the same challenge today, and the same underlying question: If we do not invest in ourselves and others, seeking to grow and improve, then why do we think G-d should bother?
P.S. The Holocaust story has a twist:
… The authors of the study have struggled, however, to explain why the same phenomenon has not been witnessed in female Holocaust survivors, who lived as long as their non-Holocaust peers but no longer.
Is there a reasonable thesis for why this is so?
Discussion (16)
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My first thought was that maybe the Holocaust survivors tended to be those who were more naturally robust, physically and/or mentally. The weaker, more sickly, and less determined ones didn't survive as often. It wouldn't be surprising then for the surviving population to be better suited for long life than another population that didn't face this sort of filtering trauma.
But the fact that the women didn't show this difference seems to argue against this hypothesis. Maybe the lingering health problems of the women were worse than those of the men, enough to erase the effect? Hormonal differences resulting in different physical responses to severe treatment and malnutrition? Beats me.
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Maybe they were more cardio-vascularly-fit from having been under prolonged stress?
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That was my first thought - survivorship bias. The survivors were pre-filtered.
I believe (but would have to verify) that the women were much more likely to be sent straight to the gas, while healthier/stronger men were kept for labor.
So there would be less of a survivor filtering bias on the females than on the males.
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My first impression was the same as the first three comments. This "survival of the fittest" explanation is discussed in the source linked in the OP.
This theory appears consistent with the second fact, that female survivors of the Holocaust did not live longer. If the thesis of the OP is correct, why did it apply only to male survivors? On the other hand, the linked article explains that Jewish men in the camps would be spared if they were useful for labor, and women were less useful in this regard.
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I was with you until this point.
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