Introduction: Psychoanalysis, Holocaust Historiography, and Survival

Here I discuss the main developments in Holocaust historiography and psychoanalytic thought since the end of the war, especially in the ways that they intersect. Noting that psychohistory is (for good reason) unfashionable, I argue nevertheless that both disciplines have much to learn from each other. With respect to the Nazi movement, psychoanalytical vocabulary provides a useful way of engaging with the drives that underpinned Hitler’s rise to power and the crimes committed by the Nazi regime. And with respect to surviving the Nazi camps—the main focus here—psychoanalytic explanations offer much food for thought. Although the main factor for survival was luck, inmates struggled on a daily basis to maintain their psychological poise sufficiently to withstand their ill-treatment. When it comes to the postwar psychoanalytical or psychotherapeutic treatment of survivors and, later, their children, the record is mixed and I discuss this history briefly too. But the main focus is on the historiographical debate surrounding the conditions that promoted survival.