PubMed · 3287471
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Z Wlazłowski. 1988. [Stefan Malost].. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3287471/
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Drawing on the writings of Primo Levi and the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, the author attempts to conceive psychic trauma as a coalescence of traumas, since this is perhaps the only way to prevent a subject from being forced back into identification with the catastrophic event, whatever that may have been. A recurrent dream of Primo Levi's suggests to the author the way that traumas may have coalesced within Levi. The hope would be to restore the entire significance of what remains from that traumatic event to the speech (parole) of the Other, to the speech of every human, even the most helpless, bruised, or destroyed among us.
Life in the concentration camps of the Third Reich was like living on another planet. The prisoners, stripped of all rights, experienced constant humiliation, uncertain survival and endless terror. Living conditions were harsh, characterized by crowding, poor sanitation and personal hygiene, lack of proper clothing and heating. The days began early with long marches and slave labor. Sleep was short and interrupted, and fatigue was constant and severe. Above all hoovered the dark cloud of ever-present famine. The prisoners were given about a fourth of the daily calorie requirements, and the food lacked vital components such as vitamins and other essential ingredients. The psychological stress was extreme, yet morbidity and mortality were mainly due to infections, injuries and hunger. Lice, scabies and other skin diseases were common. Typhus fever was ever-present, both endemic and epidemic, with a fatal outcome. Many suffered from tuberculosis, typhoid, dysentery, pneumonia and other infections diseases. Injuries were common, caused by beating, punitive whiplashing and other forms of physical abuse, gunshot wounds and dog-bites. Skull injuries with brain contusions and hemorrhages were prevalent, as well as fractured limbs, ribs and pelvic bones. Blunt injuries to chest and abdomen often had fatal outcomes due to the perforation of viscera and peritonitis or as a result of massive hemorrhage from ruptured blood vessels. The harsh winters were marked by frozen gangrenous limbs and hypothermia. Yet, the most ominous condition was the "hunger disease" with its multiple clinical expressions which, in their extreme form, led to the emaciated "musleman" and eventual death.