Long-Term Psychological Morbidity of Incarceration in Auschwitz Zdzislaw Jan Ryn PTSD in the Second Generation In the 1960s, various negative medical and psychological consequences were reported for the children of ex-inmates of concentration camps. Preliminary investigations have already revealed a higher incidence of neurosis in these children, similarities between the personality structure of parents and offspring, and the ambivalent character of strong emotional ties between the child and the parent who suffered persecution in the concentration camp (Dominik and Teutsch, 1978). General morbidity rate of children of ex-inmates is higher than that of children of noninmates. Concentration-camp stress led to the social disorganization of families of former prisoners and to the attenuation of interpersonal ties. All this is reflected in the augmentation of emotional stresses, conflict situations, and disturbed behavior. In everyday life, these disturbances assumed the form of family conflicts, transgression of the law, and suicide attempts. Pathology of parents brought on by camp stress is transferred to the next generation. From a medical and social point of view, not only are the pattern and dynamics of the disturbances of interest but also, and above all, their manner of transfer: is it biological or psychosocial? Family Pathology: The Situation of Widows Following the arrest and death of the prisoner in the camp, there began a Gehenna of the families left behind: wives, parents, or children. The situation of the widows and orphans seems to be by far the worst. In recent years psychological and social tests have been carried out in Kraków to examine the situation of widows who had lost their husbands in the Auschwitz camp (Ryn and Klodzinski, 1987; Ryn, 1992, 1992a). Realistic recollections of the moments of their husbands' arrest, and the traumatic experiences connected with receiving the news about their death in the camp, have remained in their memory until today. Many persons reacted to the shock with a deep psychosomatic crisis combined with an emotional block. These acute reactions sometimes became chronic and they have survived for many years in the mentality of the victims. Some widows experience specific imaginary and perceptual projections of their late husbands. They conduct conversations with them. The dead loom to them as good advisers, spiritual guides and protectors. There are also cases of widows who still believe that their husbands are alive but, for some unexplained reasons, cannot disclose their whereabouts or return to normal life. A negative attitude of the postwar communist authorities and state administration toward members of the Home Army, the participants in the Warsaw Uprising, and members of the resistance movement, imposed great stress on entire families. The moral wrongs perpetrated in this period survived as a deep traumatic experience. In the personality of the widows, they find their expression in permanent depression, decreased life activity, excessive concentration of attention on persons who survived the war and neurotic concern for their health and well-being. A deep sense of wrong has remained with the widows: due to loneliness, abandonment, the hardships and discomforts of life, injustice, inability to experience married life, have children, etc. It is worth emphasizing that despite painful losses, none of the interviewed widows assessed negatively her husband's conspiration or patriotic activity. On the contrary, all of them regarded this activity as worthy of the price that their husbands had paid and that they themselves have been paying until today. In such an atmosphere, the lost husband has often become a mythical hero for the family. The attitudes of the orphanated youth and children have been shaped in a similar atmosphere. Conclusions According to Kepinski (1970), three factors play the most important role in the etiology of the concentration-camp disease: the span of experiences ("Hell" and "Heaven" of the camp), the psychosomatic unity of man, which in the extreme of camp existence manifested itself dramatically, and autism of its own kind whereby survival became possible because prisoners found support within themselves. To put it briefly, the concentration-camp syndrome reflects specific traumatic factors of the Nazi concentration camps. There is no doubt that the onset of the disease dates back to camp incarceration or that it was brought on by complex trauma of biological and psychological nature. Prisoners who were able to release their defense mechanisms stood a chance of survival, but others, soon after their resources had been exhausted, suffered a breakdown resulting in the state of psychosomatic prostration referred to as being a "Muslim," which meant death in life. In the postliberation period, several characteristic phases can be distinguished. In the first phase, somatic complaints are predominant, as are symptoms of general inanition. Somatic symptoms prevail over psychic disturbances. In the second phase, somatic and psychic symptoms of the disease become seemingly latent. The duration of this phase can range from several months through several years (Cohen, 1972). In the third phase, personality disturbances become apparent along with related disturbances in social adjustment (marriage, family, work, social environment). These disturbances assume two forms: asthenic and sthenic. [Page 3 of 4]