This program originally aired online via Zoom on Thursday, June 25, 2026.
Julie Salamon, New York Times best-selling author and journalist, sat down with author and psychiatrist Michelle Friedman to discuss her latest book, Divine Corners. Friedman’s memoir is named for her small rural hometown in upstate New York. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she and her siblings spent their childhood on a chicken farm, playing in the surrounding woods. Michelle left to attend university at the age of 16 and pursued a career in psychiatry. Her career has spanned decades, and she maintains a successful practice in Manhattan. With this memoir, she chose to focus her expert eye on her own life, finding a new kind of compassion and understanding for her parents and siblings.
Having survived World War II and the Holocaust, Friedman’s parents spent over 20 years running their isolated chicken farm. Her father was an extremely temperamental man prone to angry outbursts, while her overwhelmed mother was frozen and struggled to interfere. As a child, Friedman got along well with her siblings, but in adulthood, those relationships became distant and strained. As a professional psychiatrist, Michelle was well aware that sometimes children of abuse can bond over the experience, and sometimes they separate. While many of her family members chose to separate, Michelle did what she could to remain in light contact. Ultimately, letting her family members decide how much contact to have with her, but always being available if they wanted it.
The transmission of human trauma from survivors to their children has been extensively researched. Michelle believes that while the dynamic unconscious is present in all survivor children, the more aware an individual is of it, the more control they have. This awareness is key to fostering positive relationships with family and raising the next generation.
Topics covered in this discussion:
- Michelle Friedman illustrated her father’s experience in Poland during World War II as that of a blonde, blue-eyed hero who passed as non-Jewish, which enabled his autonomy and freedom of movement. Family dynamics reverted after the war, and Friedman’s father no longer held the same kind of power in the family.
- Michelle Friedman shared how her own parents were very open about their Holocaust experience and, in general, were not secretive people. She compares her experience to those of other children of survivors, remarking that parental tendencies are varied depending on an individual’s defense mechanisms. Some parents chose to distort the truth, avoid the truth, or be secretive.
- Michelle Friedman discussed the alienation of development in children of abusive parents.
- Michelle Friedman shared how close she is with her mother, daughters, and several nieces and nephews.
