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Ernst Kris died at the age of fifty-six of a coronary thrombosis on February 27, 1957. He had recovered from an earlier attack seven years before to an extent that allowed him fully to resume the broad spectrum of his activities. Neither the vigor, the intensity of his work nor the enjoyment it gave him seemed significantly impaired and one could hope that this extraordinary capacity for creativeness and active participation in a great variety of interests and plans for the future were a reflection also of his state of health. When death occurred, it was sudden and came unexpected. Thinking of him, there is comfort in knowing that death came to him in this way; but it was cruel to his family and his friends.
Ernst Kris was a man of wide and genuine interests, far beyond the limits of his chosen field. In his contacts with people he was intensely alive, brilliantly imaginative and intuitive, and responded with rare subtlety and understanding to individual nuances in the people he met. Even those who knew nothing of his work recognized in him the distinct and strong personality. His talk was as interesting as his writing, and though he was certainly one of our best public speakers, one may well say that he was even more creative in talking to small groups. Thus conversations with Ernst Kris belong to our dearest memories. He was a kind and generous person, always gracious in social contacts of any kind. Still, his judgment on people and their work could be severe: he was intolerant of and impatient with cheapness. His ready enthusiasm was counterbalanced by a highly developed critical capacity. But you all know that Ernst Kris was an extremely complex human being, and even after many years of close contact with him, one could still be surprised by a new and admirable finesse or elegance of his feeling or thought.