Leo Eitinger

Leo Eitinger ( born December 12, 1912 in Lomnitz, Moravia, Austria - Hungary, † 15 October 1996 in Oslo ) was a Czechoslovak- Norwegian psychiatrist.

Life

Eitinger grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home and joined as a young socialist Zionists. He studied at the Brno University of Medicine and Philosophy and was drafted after graduation in 1937 to form the Czechoslovak Air Force. After the destruction of Czechoslovakia, he escaped with the help of Odd Nansen Nansen and his help in November 1939 to Norway. There was a job in psychiatric hospital in Bodø in Northern Norway. In April 1940, Norway was conquered by the German army, after his medical practice was banned by the occupation administration. Eitinger remained as a laborer in a mill operating in Nesjestranda hidden on the Norwegian west coast, but he was arrested in March 1942 and deported to Auschwitz in February 1943. When the war ended he was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he had supported other Norwegian concentration camp prisoners. His father and sister were victims of the Holocaust.

Eitinger returned to Norway, trained as a specialist in psychiatry, specializing in psychiatry after extreme stress, as they had suffered through the concentration camp prisoners, and received his doctorate in 1958. Between 1952 and 1957 he was also a senior physician in the psychiatry of the Norwegian Army. From 1966 to 1983 he was professor of psychiatry at the University of Oslo and director of the psychiatric university clinic. Eitinger played an essential role in the study of posttraumatic stress disorder. Later he generalized his approach to research and written contributions for migration research: It can be stated without fear of exaggeration did dislocation - the moving from one place to another - is the basis of human civilization.

In 1978 he was appointed commander of the Royal Olav's Order and was given the 1988 Fritt Ord Award.

Eitinger was married to his childhood friend Lisl Kohn, who had fled to Sweden. For both commitment against racism, religious tolerance and human rights founded the University of Oslo in 1986 Lisl and Leo Eitinger Prize for Human Rights ( Universitetet i Oslo menneskerettighetspris ), the first Elie Wiesel received.

Writings

• Leo Eitinger; Axel Strøm: Mortality and morbidity after excessive stress. A follow-up investigation of Norwegian concentration camp survivors, Oslo, Universitetsforlaget; New York, Humanities Press.
• Concentration camp survivors in Norway and Israel, Oslo, Universitetsforlaget
• Studies in neuroses, Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1955
• Leo Eitinger; Robert Krell; Miriam Rieck: The psychological and medical effects of concentration camps and related Persecutions on Survivors of the Holocaust: a research bibliography, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985; First Ray D. Wolfe Centre for Study of Psychological Stress, University of Haifa in 1981.
• Leo Eitinger; David Schwarz (ed.): Strangers in the world, Bern [ ua]: Huber, 1981.
• Survival and late effects, Dachau: Dachau publishing books, 1992.
• With Hallvard Rieber - Mohn: Save til å overleve. En bok om Israel, antisemittismen Norge og, 1976 ( The right to survive. A book about Israel, Norway and the anti-Semitism )
• Antisemitism in our time. A threat against us ave Proceedings of the first international hearing on anti -Semitism. Oslo 7 -8. June 1983 Oslo. The Nansen Committee, 1984.
• Leo Eitinger; Axel Strøm: mennesker blant mennesker. En bok om antisemittisme above fremmedhat. Oslo: Cappelen, 1985 ( men among men A book about anti-Semitism and xenophobia. )