It appears that when one has lived through extreme persecution in the past, such as the Holocaust survivors, the experience often leaves the victims with worldviews that do not allow the suffering of the other to penetrate. The victim invests much energy in thinking about the injustices suffered, with little energy left over for the pain of others. It is asserted that being a victim of collective violence often inhibits empathy towards others and creates continued animosity. There is a belief that victims of extreme violence should be sensitive to the suffering of others although most of the psychosocial literature points to the opposite as denoted above. This article examines the belief by looking at work that has been carried out on the psychosocial effects of the Holocaust and on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It focuses on intergenerational aspects connected to victimization and their negative impact on the expression of empathy among descendants of victims in order to explain why the sense of victimhood and justification of repeated violence is often expressed by individuals born years after the original violence took place. Notes and references