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Despite failing in almost everything it sets out to do, ultimately this book is an outstanding success. It records a Freudian Conference which took place at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1988. The four major papers are reproduced: the first by a German psychiatrist on ‘The meaning of “Auschwitz” as a destructive symbol’; the second by an American Jewish therapist, on ‘The shadow of the Holocaust on Jews and non-Jews’; the third by a Turkish Cypriot on ‘What the Holocaust means to a non-Jewish psychoanalyst’; and finally, an Israeli view. There are not only the papers and the discussions which took place on them, however, but also a complete record of twelve small group discussions, and of the Final Plenary. The editing is excellent and we can be grateful that nothing is missed, as the affect is faithfully captured.
Though compiled shortly before the outbreak of war and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia, the book does resonate with painful, living, references to the ‘intifada’ — the Palestinian uprising against the Israelis in the Occupied Territories — against the background of which the Conference was taking place. The book serves therefore as a witness to those who grapple with the shadow as it manifests in the political world, particularly where the opposites are torn apart to such an extent that the most primitive and violent forces in human nature become manifest and are acted out.
It was a Conference not to be missed: a coming together of Freudian analysts, psychiatrists, and child guidance workers from a number of countries to share their experience and understanding of the Holocaust as it emerged in their work. But is it the Holocaust itself which emerged — in any recognizable or historical form — or are terms like ‘Holocaust’ (a word frequently used for the deliberate extermination policy practised by the Nazis, especially towards the Jews) and ‘Auschwitz’ becoming metaphors by which patients, (often themselves not Jewish) label terrifying or psyc