Voices From the Holocaust

Leo Eitinger

LEO EITIN.GER Dr. Leo Eitinger was hom in Czechoslovakia in 1912. In 1939, at the age of twenty-seven, he fled his native country for Scandinavia to escape the Nazi threat. He was captured in Norway and spent much of the war in Auschwitz, where he was able to survive by exchangingidentitieswith a dead, nonJewish victim. He is one of the world's greatest authorities on the psychological impact of the Holocaust experience on survivors. After initially studying philosophy, Eitinger earned a degree in medicine at the Masaryk University in Bmo, Czechoslovakia . After World War II he specialized in psychiatry and earned an M.D. from the University of Oslo in 1958. He worked in severalhospitals and became a professor ofpsychiatry and superintendent of the department of the Medical School in Oslo, 1949 to 1984. Eitinger is the recipient of many honors including the King's Gold Medal, the Bmo University honorary medal, the Bergen-Belsen International Award, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Remembrance Medal, and the Commander of Order of the Royal Norwegian St. Olav, 1978. He was made an honorary member of the Australia and New Zealand Association for Forensic Psychiatry and has served as president of both the Norwegian Psychiatric Association and the Nordic Psychiatric Congress. His writings, LEO EITINGER 117 available in English, include Studies in Neuroses (1955), Concentration Camp Survivors in Norway and Israel (1964), and Mortality and Morbidity after Excessive Stress (1973), as well as many authoritative monographs. HJC You were a medical doctor when you were taken prisoner? LE Yes, I took my medical degree in 1937 in Czechoslovakia . Then I began my military service, which was interrupted by the occupation of the Germans. Ifled to Norway. In Czechoslovakia I used to work with a group of people who helped German refugees who escaped to Czechoslovakia and who then via Norway; helped by the so-called "Nansen-Aid," continued their migration from Norway to overseas. HJC Were these mainly Jewish people? LE No. There were both Jews and non-Jews, active politicians , Social Democrats, people who were working for human rights. There were very few Jews in Norway. Then suddenly we were refugees ourselves and we were admitted to Norway. I got a Norwegian visa in a rather complicated way having to do with my being a medical doctor. I couldn't get exit permissionfrom the Nazis for a long time. Iarrived in Norway in November 1939. I started to learn Norwegian and work in a hospital. Then Norway was invaded in April1940, and Iwas on the run again. I tried to hide out, but finally Iwas caught, arrested, and went through different prisons and concentration camps in Norway before I was deported to Auschwitz. HJC Do you recall the incident of your treating the young Elie Wiesel at Auschwitz? LE Yes. Of course, I didn't know that it was Elie when I met him. I heard it the first time when you and I and the others were together at the meeting in Long Island["A Conference on the Work of Elie Wiesel and the Holocaust Universe ," September 7-9, 1976]. HJC That's the first time he told you, yet he knew all that time? LE Yes. He recognized me in Oslo. 0.89] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 08:46 GMT) 118 Voices from the Holocaust HJC How did you meet in Oslo? LE He was invited to give a lecture. He was standing there very modestly, and then he got up and started to speak-you know, when Elie starts to speakhe changes completely . You have the feeling that he doesn't speak himself; it speaks through him. He talked about Buchenwald. I had some relatives who were in London during the war. One of them was a memberof the Czechgovernment. Ihoped that I could come from Buchenwald to London through his help. So I went to Rabbi Schechter [the chaplain] and said: 11These children are in real danger-not a danger to life now but a danger to be demoralized and we must do something, must try to bring them into some organized way of life." So he wrote a letter ofrecommendation to the Zionist organization inEnglandaskingthem to take care of these childreninBuchenwald . One of these childrenwas Elie but that Ididn't know. I did not go to England because my own letter to my relative inLondondidnot arrive. So Ireturned toNorway, where I had been arrested. In Buchenwald there had been Norwegian non-Jewish prisoners. They...