Inventing a Pathology of Catastrophe for Holocaust Survival e Limits of Medical Knowledge ...

298 Pages·2009·1.9 MB·English

LAND
R
The fi nal third of the book offers “Michael Dorland’s Cadaverland “Michael Dorland has written Michael A powerful look at
a comparative look at the “psy- Dorland
is the most important historical an important and, in many ways,
science” approach to Holocaust how French medical
study dealing with the medical a strikingly original work that
survival beyond France, particularly
C C
in the United States and Israel. He ramifi cations of the Holocaust. defi nitely ranks as superior science apprehended
illuminates the peculiar journey
Focusing on the psychiatric and scholarship. By choosing to E
of a medical discourse that began and described
A psychological literature dealing examine how the fi gure of the A Inventing
in France but took on new forms
elsewhere, eventually expanding with the impact of the Shoah Holocaust survivor has been Holocaust survival
a Pathology
into nonmedical fi elds to create the for the survivors and for their studied, he has succeeded in
D D
basis of the “traumato-culture” with
families, Dorland sketches the uncovering new material and
which we are familiar today. Vof Catastrophe
diffi cult, contradictory, often weaving this together with a
Embedding his analysis of A self-destructive struggle of critical review of a vast range A In this extraordinary study,
for Holocaust
different medical discourses in Michael Dorland explores sixty
psychological medicine with the of scholarship into a readable,
the sociopolitical history of France years of medical attempts by
A
horrors of the Shoah. Brilliantly yet subtle, and often eloquent, Survival
in the twentieth century, he also French doctors (mainly in the
V V
looks at the French Jewish Question written and ranging well beyond narrative.” fi elds of neuropsychiatry and
as it affected French medicine, psychoanalysis) to describe the
the confi nes of post-war France,
toby gelfand,
the effects of fi ve years of Nazi M i c h a e l D o r l a n d effects of concentration camp
Occupation, France’s enthusiastic E this is a book that health care Jason A. Hannah Professor of E incarceration on Holocaust
collaboration, and the problems practitioners as well as all those the History of Medicine, University survivors.
D
this would pose for postwar of Ottawa
dealing with trauma and its
R R
collective memory. Dorland begins with a discussion
historical aftermath must read.”
of the liberation of concentration
mutter sander l. gilman, camp survivors, their stay in
m Perl L Director, Program in Psychoanalysis, L deportation camps, and eventual
To return to France, analyzing the
Emory University
A circulation of mainly medical
Th e Limits of
(neuropsychiatric) knowledge,
A A
its struggles to establish a
The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series Medical Knowledge
symptomology of camp effects,
and its broadening out into
N N & Historical Memory
BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY PRESS connected medical fi elds such
as psychoanalysis. He then turns
Cin France
Waltham, Massachusetts specifi cally to the French medical
michael dorland is
D D
doctors who studied Holocaust
a professor in the School of Published by
survivors, and he investigates
Communication, Carleton
University, Ottawa. UNIVERSITY PRESS OF NEW ENGLAND 978-1-58465-784-2 somatic, psychological, and holistic
conceptions of survivors as patients
Hanover and London
Brandeis and human beings.
Cover image: Wall of Names at the Memorial
www.upne.com
of the Shoah. Photo courtesy of the author.
C a d a v e r l a n d
The Tauber Institute for the
Study of european Jewry Series
Jehuda Reinharz, General Editor
Sylvia Fuks Fried, Associate Editor
The Tauber Institute Series is dedicated to publishing compelling and innovative
approaches to the study of modern European Jewish history, thought, culture, and
society. The series features scholarly works related to the Enlightenment, modern
Judaism and the struggle for emancipation, the rise of nationalism and the spread of
antisemitism, the Holocaust and its aftermath, as well as the contemporary Jewish
experience. The series is published under the auspices of the Tauber Institute for the
Study of European Jewry — established by a gift to Brandeis University from Dr.
Laszlo N. Tauber — and is supported, in part, by the Tauber Foundation and the Valya
and Robert Shapiro Endowment.
For the complete list of books that are available in this series, please see www.upne.com
Eugene M. Avrutin, Valerii Dymshits, Alexander Ivanov, Alexander Lvov,
Harriet Murav, and Alla Sokolova, editors
Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures from S. An-sky’s Ethnographic Expeditions
Michael Dorland
Cadaverland: Inventing a Pathology of Catastrophe for Holocaust Survival
Berel Lang
Philosophical Witnessing: The Holocaust as Presence
David N. Myers
Between Jew and Arab: The Lost Voice of Simon Rawidowicz
Sara Bender
The Jews of Białystock during World War II and the Holocaust
Nili Scharf Gold
Yehuda Amichai: The Making of Israel’s National Poet
Hans Jonas
Memoirs
Itamar Rabinovich and Jehuda Reinharz, editors
Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations,
Pre-1948 to the Present
The limits of Medical Knowledge and Memory in France
Cadaver
l
Inventing
a
a Pathology
of Catastrophe
n
for Holocaust
d
Survival
michael dorland
brandeis university press
Waltham, Massachusetts
Published by
university press of new england
Hanover and London
brandeis university press
Published by University Press of New England
One Court Street, Lebanon NH 03766
www.upne.com
© 2009 by Brandeis University Press
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from
the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages
in a review. Members of educational institutions and organizations
wishing to photocopy any of the work for classroom use, or authors
and publishers who would like to obtain permission for any of the
material in the work, should contact Permissions, University Press
of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon NH 03766.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dorland, Michael.
Cadaverland: inventing a pathology of catastrophe for Holocaust survival:
the limits of medical knowledge and memory in France / Michael Dorland.
p. cm. — (The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-58465-784-2 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945) — Influence. 2. Holocaust, Jewish
(1939–1945) — Psychological aspects. 3. Holocaust survivors —
Mental health — France. 4. Prisoners of war — Mental health — France.
5. Imprisonment — Psychological aspects. 6. Prisoners of war —
France — Rehabilitation. 7. Pathology — Philosophy. 8. Medicine —
Philosophy. 9. Psychiatry — Philosophy. I. Title.
rc451.4.p7d67 2009
616.85'21200944 — dc22 2009016548
this book was published with the generous support
of the lucius n. littauer foundation, inc.
University Press of New England is a member of the Green Press
Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum
requirement for recycled paper.
Pour la famille,
les vivants et les morts

. . . il n’y a plus de morts, il n’y a que du cadavre.
Ce n’est même plus le règne de la mort, c’est le règne
du cadavre . . .
eugène minkowski, 1948
Skeleton, skeleton, where are you going? What are
you doing? You walk unsteadily, limping, ridiculous,
swaying from one leg to the other, bending to compensate
for the action of your vanished muscles, trying with each
step to keep your balance, arms extended before you,
seeking something to lean on, your head wobbling,
your penis dangling.
françois wetterwald, Les Morts inutiles, 1946
Nicht erle Wormer soll mein Lieb ernarhen
Die reine Flamme — die soll ihn verzehren
Ich liebte stets die Worme und das Licht
Darum verbrennet und begrabt mich nicht
[So that the worms not eat my body,
The purifying flame will help consume it,
Its light preserves me forever from the worms,
Because, cremated, they can grab me not]
Painted sign-board above the Buchenwald crematorium