Arnold Richards opened the panel, stating that he had presented a paper in China on the theme of Freud's cultural and religious influences. He had been surprised by the interest the atheistic Chinese had shown in Freud's Jewish influences, albeit mainly directed at intellectual aspects.

He then described the Freud family's Galician origins and their connection with their Jewish past. Although Freud's origins were Moravian, he said he was not a ‘Galizianer’ and was from the Rheinland