Survival Debt Syndrome

Classification according to ICD-10
F62.0	Persistent personality change after extreme stress - personality changes after concentration camp experiences
F43.1	Post-traumatic stress disorder
ICD-10 online (WHO version 2019)

Under survivor guilt syndrome , also under the definition KZ syndrome or Holocaust syndrome known, is a form of post-traumatic stress disorder understood (PTSD), in which the person of guilt is plagued, an extreme event (z. B. accident , terrorist attack , Having survived the rampage , natural disaster , epidemic , war , genocide or imprisonment in a camp ), although many people died as a result of this event or during this event. The decisive factor for the diagnosis is the person's feeling of guilt that they survived willingly or unintentionally while other people around them died without their being able to help them.

Originally, this term was for guilt- stricken survivors of the Holocaust used.

Origins of the term

The term survivor-guilt syndrome (Survivor-Guilt-Syndrome) was coined in the 1960s by the German-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst William G. NL for concentration camp victims plagued by feelings of guilt . However, there has been research on the subject before without using the term.

The Netherlands, who was born in Germany (East Prussia) and emigrated to the United States in 1934, was an appraiser for the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York in the 1960s. He examined many hundreds of traumatized survivors of Nazi persecution - mostly Jewish - as part of requests for reparation and found them to have survivor syndrome . In his book "Consequences of Persecution: The Survivor Syndrome - Soul Murder" he summarized its causes as follows:

1. Living in an atmosphere of constant threat and an initially misunderstood, nameless, then increasingly approaching doom;
2. the physical and mental wear and tear of the person as a whole;
3. frequent acute danger of death and fear of death;
4. Uncertainty of all human relationships and contacts;
5. defenseless existence in a permanent state of complete or almost complete lawlessness;
6. Inundation of the mental ego structure by the incessant onslaught of public and personal insults, suspicions, slander and accusations, again without the possibility of recourse to official legal protection.

Symptoms can u. a. be: Depression, insecurity, apathy, withdrawal, psychosomatic illnesses, states of fear and excitement, insomnia, inner restlessness, symptoms of delusion and also feelings of guilt. According to the Netherlands, a feeling of guilt, which the person concerned cannot suppress in the long run, is central and underlying for the survivor syndrome. He called this the "survivor guilt".

Investigations on Victims of National Socialism

The victims survived the persecution during the Nazi era by fleeing, in hiding or as inmates in extermination camps ; however, many had lost their families in the process. In recent years people who survived as children have increasingly come to the center of scientific discussions and psychiatric examinations; also the children of survivors (second generation) who were not themselves exposed to the Nazi terror, but who show similar - but less severe - symptoms.

Retraumatisation by the German post-war psychiatry

Hypermnesia , the overly sharp memory that is charged with strong affect, would be of particular importance . This occurs before going to sleep, but also during medical treatment and is very painful for the traumatized. Another disadvantage in the reparation processes was that the sense of time in the ego structure of the traumatized had often been impaired and the affected got tangled up in the course of time. Accordingly, the survivors of the National Socialist persecution appeared late for the appraisal trials.

The Netherlands criticized the fact that most of the German reviewers of the post-war period did not recognize the strains of the survivor syndrome. The German representatives of classical psychiatry agreed that emotional stress and shocks would subside immediately after the persecution. It seems “downright grotesque”, according to Dutch, “when one finds survival in an extermination camp described in a medical examiner's report as 'the inconvenience of the concentration camp' and the request for reparation from someone who has been damaged in this way is rejected. The psychological dullness of such an expert appears to be unsurpassable, even if the conservatism of German psychiatry that has already been described is accepted. "

See also

• Psychological trauma
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Stockholm Syndrome

literature

• Concentration Camp Syndrome - Tormenting Dreams . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1964 ( online ).
• Hans-Martin Lohmann (Ed.): Psychoanalysis and National Socialism. Contributions to processing an unresolved trauma. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-596-12231-7 .
• Martin S. Bergmann, Milton E. Jucovy, Judith S. Kestenberg (eds.): Children of the victims. Children of the perpetrators. Psychoanalysis and the Holocaust. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-596-13937-6 .
• Tadeusz Sobolewicz : Back from Hell: From the arbitrariness of survival in the concentration camp. 6th edition. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-596-14179-6 .
• William G. Netherlands: Consequences of the Persecution: The Survivor Syndrome, Soul Murder. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-11015-2 .
• Angela Moré: The unconscious passing on of trauma and involvement of guilt to subsequent generations . In: Journal for Psychology . tape 21 , no. 2 , 2013, ISSN  0942-2285 ( journal-fuer-psychologie.de ).

Web links

• Trauma Information Center, Claus Rüegg: Second World War . The Holocaust, The Concentration Camp Survivor Syndrome.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ WG Netherlands: Consequences of Persecution: The Survivor Syndrome, Soul Murder. Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-518-11015-2 , p. 10.
2. ↑ Mathias Hirsch: Guilt and feelings of guilt. For psychoanalysis of trauma and introject. Göttingen 2014, p. 275 f.
3. ↑ Frederik van Gelder: Trauma and Society - Debate about trauma and the consequences of war in the Netherlands and Germany. (No longer available online.) University of Frankfurt , archived from the original on January 19, 2012 ; Retrieved September 11, 2013 . 
4. ↑ WG Netherlands: Consequences of Persecution: The Survivor Syndrome, Soul Murder. 1980, p. 230.
5. ↑ WG Netherlands: Consequences of Persecution: The Survivor Syndrome, Soul Murder. 1980, p. 9 ff.

This article is about a health issue. It is not used for self-diagnosis and does not replace a diagnosis by a doctor. Please note the information on health issues !