Emotional distress and other health-related dimensions among elderly survivors of the Shoa living in the community.
(17/45)
BACKGROUND: In prior community studies survivors of the Shoa (Hebrew for Holocaust) scored higher on emotional distress (ED) than Europe-born Jews who were not in Nazi-occupied countries during World War II (WWII). OBJECTIVE: Are elderly Shoa survivors, who by definition have survived the difficulties of a long life, equally distressed? ED was assessed among a population of elderly survivors living in the community, about 55 years after the end of WWII. ED was also examined by the severity of exposure to adverse life conditions during the war. In addition, other health-related dimensions, e.g., sleep disturbances and social activities, were measured. METHODS: A national survey of 5,055 respondents, of whom 4,231 were Jewish-Israelis, was conducted among community residents aged 60 years and over. The research population included former residents of Nazi-occupied countries (N=896). This group was compared with Europe- and America-born individuals who resided elsewhere during WWII (N=331). All respondents were administered, among many other items, the 12-GHQ to measure ED and a questionnaire that included socio-demographic and other health-related variables. Bivariate and multivariate methods of analysis were used to compare distributions and to identify relevant factors. RESULTS: The group of elderly survivors was significantly more distressed than the comparison group. Individuals who had been in ghettos, hiding, or labor or extermination camps had higher mean scores than survivors who were in Nazi-occupied countries, but were spared those experiences. Multivariate analysis showed that the direct effect of the Shoa experience was no longer evident when two other Shoa-dependent variables, years of education and number of chronic health conditions, were entered into the model. Sleep disturbances were more often present in the survivors than among their counterparts, including after controlling for other variables. Social activities that contribute to well-being were more limited among survivors. CONCLUSION: Fifty years after WWII there was partial evidence of increased emotional distress among our group of elderly survivors, and clear evidence for the presence of adverse effects on other health-related dimensions and pleasurable activities. (+info)
Broken identity: the impact of the Holocaust on identity in Romanian and Polish Jews.
(18/45)
The paper is based on interviews conducted with Holocaust survivors in Poland (30 interviews) and Romania (55 interviews). It describes how the Holocaust affected survivor identity. Two aspects of identity are analyzed the sense of personal identity and social identity. Each affects the other but they are largely independent and the trauma of the Holocaust impacted each of them differently. Personal identity seems to be unrelated to either the type of trauma or the survivor's social situation. There are no significant differences in that aspect between Polish and Romanian survivors. Social identity is more related to the survivors' social situation prior to and after the trauma. The sense of identity, both personal and social, is dynamic and changes over time. (+info)
Extermination of the Jewish mentally-ill during the Nazi era--the "doubly cursed".
(19/45)
In Nazi Germany, physicians initiated a program of sterilization and euthanasia directed at the mentally-ill and physically disabled. Relatively little is known regarding the fate of the Jewish mentally-ill. Jewish mentally-ill were definitely included and targeted and were among the first who fell victim. They were systematically murdered following transfer as a specialized group, as well as killed in the general euthanasia program along with non-Jewish mentally ill. Their murder constituted an important link between euthanasia and the Final Solution. The targeting of the Jewish mentally-ill was comprised of four processes including public assistance withdrawal, hospital treatment limitations, sterilization and murder. Jewish "patients" became indiscriminate victims not only on the basis of psychiatric diagnosis, but also on the basis of race. The killing was efficiently coordinated with assembly in collection centers prior to being transferred to their deaths. The process included deceiving Jewish patients' family members and caregivers in order to extract financial support long after patients had been killed. Jewish patients were targeted since they were helpless and considered the embodiment of evil. Since nobody stood up for the Jews, the Nazis could treat the Jewish patients as they saw fit. Several differences existed between euthanasia of Jews and non-Jews, among which the Jewish mentally-ill were killed regardless of work ability, hospitalization length or illness severity. Furthermore, there was discrimination in the process leading up to killing (overcrowding, less food). For the Nazis, Jewish mentally-ill patients were unique among victims in that they embodied both "hazardous genes" and "racial toxins." For many years there has been silence relating to the fate of the Jewish mentally-ill. This deserves to be corrected. (+info)
Johannes Heinrich Schultz and National Socialism.
(20/45)
BACKGROUND: Johannes Heinrich Schultz (1884-1970) established the set of techniques known as "autogenic training." From 1936 until 1945 he worked as assistant director of the Goring Institute. His role during National Socialism has been underestimated in our opinion. METHOD: We considered Schultz's academic publications and his "autobiography" from 1964. RESULTS: Schultz publicly advocated compulsory sterilization as well as the "annihilation of life unworthy of life" and developed a diagnostic scheme which distinguished between the neurotic/curable and the hereditary/ incurable. In fact, this classification was then employed to decide between life and death. In order to justify the "New German Psychotherapy" alongside eugenic psychiatry, Schultz carried out degrading and inhuman "treatments" of homosexual prisoners of concentration camps who were in mortal danger. LIMITATIONS: This study was based on written documents. We were not able to interview contemporary witnesses. CONCLUSION: By advocating compulsory sterilization and the "annihilation of life unworthy of life" and by the abuse of homosexuals as research objects Schultz violated fundamental ethical principles of psychiatry. (+info)
Dr. Irmfried Eberl (1910-1948): mass murdering MD.
(21/45)
There are isolated cases of physicians who murdered their patients. However, never had a single physician personally supervised the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of individuals, until Dr. Irmfried Eberl. Commander of the Nazi death camp Treblinka, he killed both the ill and those he considered "a disease to his nation." At age 32 Dr. Eberl established Treblinka, where he was responsible for the killing of approximately 280,000 individuals within a few weeks. The position of camp commandant was earned following his success as head of two psychiatric hospitals in Germany where he coordinated the murder of thousands of mentally ill Jews and non-Jews within the context of the euthanasia program. However, few in medicine have heard of him or the harm he caused to the ethical practice of the profession and to human rights. (+info)
Psychiatric genocide: Nazi attempts to eradicate schizophrenia.
(22/45)
"In pursuit of the Nazi mind?" The deployment of psychoanalysis in the Allied struggle against Germany.
(23/45)
This paper discusses how psychoanalytic ideas were brought to bear in the Allied struggle against the Third Reich and explores some of the claims that were made about this endeavour. It shows how a variety of studies of Fascist psychopathology, centered on the concept of superego, were mobilized in military intelligence, postwar planning and policy recommendations for "denazification." Freud's ideas were sometimes championed by particular army doctors and government planners; at other times they were combined with, or displaced by, competing, psychiatric and psychological forms of treatment and diverse studies of the Fascist "personality." This is illustrated through a discussion of the treatment and interpretation of the deputy leader of the Nazi Party, Rudolf Hess, after his arrival in Britain in 1941. (+info)