Re-Somatization of Affects in Survivors of Persecution1

Liberated from the abyss of gruesome existence in German concentration camps or hiding places, many survivors were suffering from psychosomatic disturbances. Friedman (1949) examined 172 former concentration camp inmates who were jailed in Cyprus and found that "most of the complaints were predominantly psychosomatic". Since then, Bastiaans (1957), Strauss (1957), von Baeyer et al.(1964), Eitinger (1964), Bensheim (1960), and Lederer (1965) described psychosomatic symptoms in concentration camp victims. Venzlaff (1963) and Paul and Herberg (1963) found the same in Jewish persons who were degraded or had to hide for years.

Our own psychiatric evaluations confirmed the frequency of psychosomatic disturbances and emotional outbursts. Four affects—anger, depression, withdrawal, and anxiety—were studied in their relationship to two groups of psychosomatic disturbances. We distinguished between psychosomatic reactions such as tensionheadache, insomnia, gastro-intestinal disturbances, etc., and psychosomatic disorders, like asthma, ulcer, hypertension, etc. We differentiated the degree of evidence of the affects as follows: non-evident, mild, moderate, strong.

During recent years we examined 138 survivors of persecution (Hoppe, 1966) and treated seven former camp inmates in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy (Hoppe, 1965). These persons were sent to us by their legal advisors for the purpose of having us check for any evidence of severe psychic damage due to persecution. Close examination revealed 144 out of 145 survivors to be suffering from psychosomatic reactions, regardless of age, sex, sociocultural background, degree of persecution and diagnostic classification. The one patient who made an exception had developed schizophrenia due to persecution. In twenty-eight survivors, these conditions were accompanied by psychosomatic disorders.

With regard to the predominance of aggression or depression, a comparison of the group of psychosomatic reactions (116 p