Abstract
When restitution is claimed for psychic damage sustained as a result of Nazi persecution, a German psychiatrist, usually a prominent member of his profession, is called upon by the German court as chief evaluator. In cases where the claimant was an infant at the time of the persecution, the chief evaluator has often come to some variant of the following conclusion: Since the patient was an infant during the height of the persecution, he could not have been consciously aware of the events taking place around him and therefore could not have sustained any psychic damage from them.
Three such cases are described and the evaluations of the chief evaluators quoted. Documentation, including a letter from Dr. Anna Freud, is brought to show that such judgment is wholly erroneous.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.