Lack of long-lasting consequences of starvation on eating pathology in Jewish Holocaust survivors of Nazi concentration camps

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether Holocaust survivors will show the same eating pathologies that were found in other participants who had also undergone starvation. Fifty-five Holocaust survivors and 43 matched control participants answered a questionnaire designed to explore eating problems and pathologies described in the literature as lasting for decades after a period of severe food restriction. Confirmation of the survivors' reports was obtained from their children. No significant differences in current eating habits were found between the Holocaust survivors and their matched controls. Prolonged starvation in Holocaust survivors did not lead to disordered eating habits in the sample. These results conflict with the notion that severe starvation consistently leads to food preoccupation and disordered eating.     

Children of Nazi Germany 60 years on

Abstract

Defence against shock, feelings of guilt, and shame about German atrocities during National Socialism (NS) have dominated the public discourse in Germany for decades. Mitscherlich and Mitscherlich have talked about the inability to mourn due to the involvement of most German families in Nazi terror. The research projects “Childhood in War” at the University of Munich and “War Children and their Flight” at the Hamburg DPG Institute are studying the long-term implications of a childhood during World War II and the Nazi period. In most cases, the personal development of the “war children” was affected – in the case of psychoanalysts, their psychoanalytic socialisation and current professional practice as well. The transgenerational transmission forms an NS introject in the personality. Due to their parents’ lack of empathy, war children are unconsciously looking for a containment of their unbearable feelings in their childhood. Psychoanalysis (including training analysis) becomes a stage where the analysee's childhood loneliness, the taboo-forming, the inhibition to ask and the protection of the parents, as well as feelings of guilt and embarrassment in the family, not talking about matters, and silence, occur once more in transference.     

The nightmare continues. Life after the occupation time in survivors and their descendants

In the physical and psychical suffering of former concentrations camp inmates, their families, and descendants Auschwitz is as real as ever. The author reports on his own encounters with victims and on the protracted consequences of the camp experience. The author comments on the difficulty of handling the topic of Auschwitz both in Poland and in the Federal Republic.     

Jung's views of Nazi Germany: the first year and Jung's transition

This article first considers Jung's response to the coming to power of the Nazis in Germany. It brings forth evidence that, besides wanting to preserve psychotherapy in Germany and maintain the international connection between the German and other communities of psychotherapists, he wanted to advance Jungian psychology – his psychology – in Germany. It also presents evidence that, although he occasionally made some anti‐Semitic statements during this early period, he was not anti‐Semitic in the way the Nazis were. The paper then argues that after Gustav Bally's criticisms in the Neue Zuercher Zeitung in February 1934, Jung entered into a transitional period that spring during which he became warier both of the Nazis and of making any statements that could be construed as being anti‐Semitic. Schoenl and Peck (2012) have shown how Jung's views of Nazi Germany changed from 1933 to March 1936. This present article demonstrates very significant changes in Jung's views during the important early part of this period, that is from January 1933 – when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany – through to the spring of 1934. It draws on evidence from archival and other primary sources.     

Jewish Identity, Hostility Toward Germany, and Knowledge About the Holocaust in the United States and Germany

This study examined the relationships among Jewish identity, hostility toward Germany, and knowledge of the Holocaust in American and German Jews. Questionnaires were distributed at synagogues in the United States, and packets were sent to heads of Jewish communities in Germany. Participants were 109 Americans and 31 Germans. Results suggested that hostility toward Germany and knowledge of the Holocaust are related to Jewish identity in American Jews, but that the variables are not related to Jewish identity for Jews in Germany. Additionally, Jews in Germany knew more about the Holocaust than did their American counterparts. Clinical psychology internship and post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California,it>Faculty position at Connecticut College in 1965 and served in its department of psychology for 33 years, until his retirement in 1998