The Psychological and Medical Effects of Concentration Camps and Related Persecutions on Survivors of the Holocaust: A Research Bibliography

Terrence Paris is Public Services Librarian at Mount St. Vincent
University in Halifax.

The Ray D. Wolfe Centre for the Study of Psychological Stress at the University of Haifa commissioned this comprehensive, multi-lingual research bibliography of printed books, articles, and manuscripts collected at three institutions — Haifa, the Department of Psychiatry Library at the University of British Columbia, and Stichting ICODO in Utrecht. The studies are listed alphabetically by the first-named author, then chronologically by year of publication. The topics addressed are: direct observations and direct reactions to the camps during imprisonment and immediately after liberation; compensation and rehabilitation; physical and psychological results, including that constellation of somatic and psychiatric symptoms known as “concentration camp syndrome”; children as camp survivors and children who hid or wandered; and the second generation — the camp survivors’ children. The emphasis is on psychopathology, on the examination of psychological and medical difficulties, rather than on adjustments achieved by survivors. There are no annotations.

The compilers admit to the inadequacy of the subject index. A researcher might assume that the bibliography is strictly focused on the Jewish survivors. The subject index should have reflected the full range of concerns. Headings are too general. Concentration Camps (General) includes reference number 04930 to Soviet prisoners of war. The numbers for studies printed in Bergmann, M.S., and M.E. Jucovy (Eds.) Generations of the Holocaust (New York: Basic Books, 1982) are listed under inappropriate headings (e.g., number 06860, on the discriminatory aspects of German indemnity, is under Children and Child Survivors and number 06800, on survivor parents, is under Compensation, Restitution and Pensions). A more serviceable and accurate index should be a feature of subsequent editions.

The bibliography is an important first effort, particularly for North American scholars who will have access to the collection in formation at the University of British Columbia. In his foreword, the Director of the Ray D. Wolfe Centre reminds us that the ranks of the survivors diminish with each passing year. Current scholarly investigation of this aspect of the Holocaust has a special urgency.