PubMed · 766106
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B Siniecki. 1976. [Dr. Alexander Witkowski].. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/766106/
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This presentation is meant to heighten physicians' awareness of the special needs and strengths of Holocaust survivors. There has been much research on patients of psychiatric clinics, and there is considerable evidence from other sources that Holocaust survivors are a high risk group for mental, as well as other medical problems. A physician who is aware of this is better able to diagnose and treat survivor-patients. Therefore, it is proposed that questions about the Holocaust be routinely included in the taking of personal histories from patients who came from Europe after World War II. 2 examples of Holocaust survivor patients are described, to show how the use of this information can improve the care provided by the physician.
There has been considerable controversy over the identity of the skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil in 1985 and believed to be those of Dr Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz 'Angel of Death'. Bone DNA analysis was therefore conducted in an attempt to provide independent evidence of identity. Trace amounts of highly degraded human DNA were successfully extracted from the shaft of the femur. Despite the presence of a potent inhibitor of DNA amplification, microsatellite alleles could be reproducibly amplified from the femur DNA. Comparison of the femur DNA with DNA from Josef Mengele's son and wife revealed a bone genotype across 10 different loci fully compatible with paternity of Mengele's son. Less than 1 in 1800 Caucasian individuals unrelated to Mengele's son would by chance show full paternal inclusion. DNA analysis therefore provides very strong independent evidence that the remains exhumed from Brazil are indeed those of Josef Mengele.
The psychosocial situation of widows and orphans of victims of the Nazi concentration camps in Poland are presented. In 1984, 74 widows of victims from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp were interviewed. This article describes widows' emotional-behavioral reactions when facing the imprisonment and death of their husbands, their difficulties in adapting themselves to widowhood, different adaptative forms of memories of their married life, and consequences relevant to widows' mental health and family, and social consequences of widowhood.