Emotional scars

Emotional scars

Dr. Henry Krystal

A survivor who focused his lifetime researching and reflecting on the emotional scars carried by former concentration camp inmates. Krystal had interviewed more than 2,000 survivors and concluded that "Many survivors look better from a sociological point of view than from a psychiatric one." Survivors may appear adjusted to society but Dr. Krystal had acknowledged his personal battle with "post-traumatic stress-type problems". 

This survivor grew up lonely as his grandfather was beaten to death in his country store during a pogrom against Jews when Krystal was 13 years old. A year later the Nazis invaded (1939) and Krystal would never see his immediate family again as his mother died in a death camp, and his father and older brother fled east from the Germans. 

Emotional scars carried by survivors include survival guilt and the inability to experience joy and pleasure apart from guilt. A study by Dr. William G. Niederland concludes that survivors felt guilty seeking pleasure in small activities such as going to a movie or a social gathering. It felt immoral for them to spend time enjoying themselves when most of their families had been killed. (NY Times)

Dr. Krystal was dedicated to the studies of understanding the psychological consequences on children whose parents had survived Auschwitz- the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Krystal feared the personal experiences that plagued his mind would harm his own children's development. He specifically was overwhelmed with how the expression of anger or suppression of anger would effect the next generation. 

It took time for Krystal to establish a study group on the children of Holocaust survivors due to the American Psychoanalytic Association not initially seeing the importance and relevance in the study. Krystal and other presenters had compiled books and presentations that had transformed our understanding of PTSD and psychological disorders. Krystal's hard work had provided mankind with an understanding of PTSD, affective disorders and affect additions, dissociation, and other concepts. His studies had analyzed survivors of traumatic events such as experiencing war did not make people out of control people. Instead, we understand that their actions point to their internal battles of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and have a better understanding of symptoms and treatment. 

Dr. Henry Krystal had passed away at age 90 due to Parkinson's disease. As he was consumed with worry over how his own personal battles would affect his children's development there is a consideration that his children developed positively. His two sons followed in his footsteps as one of his sons, John Krystal became a director of psychiatry at Yale and an editor of "Biological Psychiatry Journal". His second son, Andrew is a psychiatrist who teaches at Duke University, studies depression, and heads a sleep disorder clinic. (Fogelman)