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This short paper was written in 1940 while the writer was interned as in Italian citizen in the British concentration camp at Ahmednagar, British India. As are the other papers in the journal, this also is intended for those people who are unacquainted with psychoanalysis. In particular situations such as war or during restrictions in concentration camps, the earlier developmental levels, delineated by Freud, become clearly manifest. Servadio adheres strictly to Freud's life and death instincts.
In the concentration camp sexual abstinence was imposed, and to the extent to which this drive could not be sublimated, regression to former pregenital stages of development occurred, giving rise to perversions. When these regressive drives cannot be satisfied, tension increases, and thus anxiety and feelings of guilt arise. Since men and women were separated in the camp, a means of sexual discharge was provided through various kinds of disguised, harmless satisfactions—as in telling homosexual jokes—just as in schools and military training camps. Regression to infantile behavior, such as querulousness, is also the rule.