The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute welcomed renowned historian Dagmar Herzog this past Wednesday evening in Rapaporte Treasure Hall. In her lecture, "Post Holocaust Anti-Semitism and the Psychiatry of Trauma", Herzog discussed various arguments given by postwar West German psychiatrists to deny reparations to the traumatized survivors of Nazi persecution.

Herzog is a distinguished professor of history and the Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Her specialties include Jewish-Christian relations, sexuality, gender, trauma and the Holocaust. Herzog's most recent publication, Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History, provides a detailed overview of the tumultuous history of the development of European sexuality.

Prof. Shula Reinharz (SOC), the founder of HBI, introduced the event by talking briefly about the work of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute.

Joanna Michlic, the director of the current HBI project on families, children and the Holocaust then introduced Herzog.

Herzog began her lecture with an overview of the development of post-traumatic stress disorder, claiming that the disorder originated, or was first attributed, to industrial and railroad accidents in the 19th century, and the shellshock experiences of soldiers returning from service in WWI, pointing out that clinicians plainly ignore the incidence of PTSD in survivors of the WW II.

"What's weird is that most accounts of the evolution of PTSD skip over the most crucial moment-and that has to do with the aftermath of the Holocaust," said Herzog.

"In fact, it was the catalyst for changing the science of trauma, and include the very particular ways we now understand PTSD, which include delayed reaction onset, numbness in affect, intrusive memories and hyper-arousal," Herzog continued.

"PTSD had its roots in a cluster of symptoms shown by Holocaust survivors."

Herzog spoke on the difficulties survivors experienced in trying to receive reparations from the West German state for their psychological and physical suffering.

The difficulty arose when the psychiatrists of the West German state who were evaluating the compensation claims, would regularly reject the claims, "arguing that whatever debilitating nightmare, insomnia, chronic melancholia, fears, or psychosomatic pains survivors were displaying, had its roots either in their pre-camp lives, or in their difficulties adjusting to post-camp life-anything but the camps themselves."

Herzog also examined the various stages of thought among those Americans who sought to legitimate the psychological suffering and trauma of survivors. Herzog argued that these conflicts between psychiatrists in West Germany and the United States over the status of reparations led to the development of the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Other works of Herzog's include Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and Future of American Politics, Sex After Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth Century Germany and Intimacy and Exclusion: Religious Politics in Pre-revolutionary Baden.

Herzog is also the editor and coeditor of six anthologies, including Brutality and Desire: War and Sexuality in Europe's Twentieth Century and Lessons and Legacies VII: The Holocaust in International Perspective.

The German Consul General, Rolf Schutte, and his vice consul were present for the lecture.

The floor was opened to questions after Herzog completed her lecture.

Topics touched upon in the question-and-answer session included the current status of PTSD and the status attributed to Nazis as sufferers.

Approximately 50 people were in attendance.