Elie Aron Cohen

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Elie Aron Cohen was a Dutch doctor (Groningen July 16, 1909 – Arnhem October 22, 1993) who, being Jewish, was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He arrived there on September 16, 1943. His wife and young son as well as his parents-in-law were killed upon arrival, but he managed to survive through a combination of chance and skill. His status and abilities as a doctor were instrumental for his survival. On May 6, 1945 he was liberated by the U.S. military in Melk, where he had been transported by way of Mauthausen.

Elie Cohen is the author of a number of books about the holocaust. The first of these was the Ph.D. thesis on which he graduated on March 11, 1952 at Utrecht State University (supervisor: H.C. Rümke, professor of psychiatry). The book (in Dutch) was entitled "The German Concentration Camp — a medical-psychological study", and it was one of the first scientific descriptions of what had happened in killing centres such as Auschwitz. It also provided an analysis of the psychology of the SS-men who manned these camps. At that time there was little interest in the Netherlands in recounting these events, but surprisingly the thesis was much in demand. It was later translated into English, Swedish and Japanese.

Elie Cohen went on to write a number of books and publications about extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Sobibor and their survivors. He was instrumental in obtaining recognition in the Netherlands of the "post-concentration camp syndrome" from which many survivors came to suffer in their later years – including himself.

(Major source: Elie Cohen's biography (in Dutch) on the site of the digital library of Dutch letters http://www.dbnl.org/

• Some publications of Elie Aron Cohen:

• • "Het post-concentratiekampsyndroom: een 'disaster'-syndroom". Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde 1972; 116; 1680-5.
  • Human Behaviour in the Concentration Camp. Reprint edition (February 1, 1989) Free Association Books. English translation (of his thesis?). ISBN 1-85343-047-1
  • The abyss: A confession. Publisher: Norton; (1st ed. January 1, 1973). ISBN 0-393-07477-3. (English translation of "De Afgrond")