The Analyst and the Damaged Victim of Nazi Persecution

A great deal has already been written about the problem of the persecution and systematic extermination of one-third of the Jewish people which took place during the Second World War: historians, psychiatrists, jurists, sociologists and others have worked on and written about it (von Baeyer et al., 1964; Cohn, 1967; Eitinger, 1964; Flannery, 1965; Frankl, 1964; Gilbert, 1963; Gyomroi, 1963; March, 1960; Trautmann, 1961; Venzlaff, 1967).

I want to approach the problem from the point of view of my daily analytical experience in Israel. I find myself in continual confrontation with the fact of millions murdered and of countless other victims of persecution which induces such a feeling of awe that it does not seem possible to do other than stand silent. Yet it seems to me to be the duty of all of us, through work on the shadow and through the development of our capacity to love, to contribute to an improvement of relationships between men so as to reduce the danger of the extermination of peoples.

Since I began to work in Haifa only in 1959, my personal experience is limited to those victims of persecution who had begun psychiatric or psychological treatment immediately after the war and for various reasons needed a new therapist. Some were relatively young people, between 20 and 30, who were rescued as children and came to Israel in a children's convoy, or who were hidden with Christian families or in monasteries while their parents perished.

When I think of the many people with whom I have worked analytically for more or less lengthy periods during the last nine years in Israel, I find scarcely anyone who has not directly or indirectly suffered from the Jewish persecution. This is evident when we consider that the bulk of immigration took place after 1933 and, moreover, that every immigration resulted in the end from a fateful belongingness to the Jewish people.

Thus one sees how greatly the persecution in particular, and Jewish