Psychoanalysis, Historiography, and the Nazi Camps

The narratives of Dutch survivors Eddy de Wind, Louis Micheels, and Elie A. Cohen provide a sobering perspective on survival in Nazi camps, contrasting sharply with the more optimistic views of contemporaries like Bettelheim and Frankl. Their self-critical accounts, informed by psychoanalytic practice, reveal the complexities of survival beyond mere positivity and decisiveness. By comparing these writings with those of female doctors from Auschwitz, the book highlights evolving psychoanalytic concepts and how modern Holocaust historiography embraces insights previously overlooked.