Professor Antoni Kępiński on the concentration camp syndrome Zdzisław Jan Ryn
“Y
ou can’t understand something you have never experienced yourself, at least to a certain minimum extent.” These are words Antoni Kępiński used to describe the subject and atmosphere of the world of schizophre
nia, yet this could just as readily apply to his work on Auschwitz. Alongside its undeniable scientific value, his research on the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz‑Birkenau is striking for its profound authenticity and shows his per sonal attitude to the subject, as well as to the people who were incarcerated in
the concentration camps. Today we know that Kępiński himself was an inmate of the Spanish concentration camp Miranda de Ebro, which cost him two years of his youth. So we may well be surprised that he never mentioned this period of his life in his conversations with friends, nor wrote about it in his publications.
About the author: Zdzisław Jan Ryn is Professor of the Chair of Psychiatry at the Jagiellonian Uni versity Medical College and of the Chair of Clinical Rehabilitation at the University of Physical Education in Kraków. A former Vice Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Kraków Academy of Medicine (1981–1984) and Head of the Department of Social Pathology in the Chair of Psychiatry at the Jagiellonian University Medical College (1984–2009), he is one of the most prominent Pol ish researchers into concentration camp pathology. Member of the editorial team of the scientific annual Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim and consultant of the Medical Review Auschwitz project.