Language:
German
Year of publication:
2006
Titel der Quelle:
Deutsch-jüdische Wissenschaftsschicksale
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2006) 180-231
Keywords:
Bettelheim, Bruno
;
Nazi concentration camps
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Psychological aspects
Abstract:
Discusses Bettelheim’s analysis of the role of concentration camps in Nazi policy. Following the "Anschluss" in Austria, Bettelheim and his wife tried to escape but they were stopped at the Czech border. The next day they tried to leave Vienna by train, but only his wife was allowed to get on. Bettelheim’s passport was confiscated, and his apartment was searched. In May 1938 he was arrested and imprisoned in Dachau and then in Buchenwald, altogether for almost a year. Bettelheim was then released. He emigrated to the USA, where he wrote a biographical account in 1938 and a scientific analysis of his experiences in 1943, the texts of which underwent changes during the next several decades. Argues that this was due to changes in his own self-perception. Beginning his career as a social psychologist, he later became a psychoanalyst, and he examined the attitudes and behavior of his fellow prisoners; as a prisoner, he evolved from seeing himself as a political detainee to realizing he was a persecuted Jew.
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