Staff of the Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital in Lodz

This are my colleagues from the Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital in Lodz. None of them were Jews. The photo was taken in Lodz, in 1952.

In 1951 I completed my coursework, in 1952 I received my diploma. Ever since I started my studies I knew I would choose psychiatry as my specialization.

I worked on my first specialization for three years, then another three years for the second specialization. In 1961 I submitted my doctoral dissertation.

I defended it in 1962. The title of the dissertation was 'Criminal Issues in Schizophrenia.' I started working immediately after I completed the coursework, in 1951, in the J. Babicki Psychiatric Hospital.

For two or three years the conditions were very bad, because the women's ward of the clinic was located in the hospital. I remember huge rooms, very crowded, poor sanitary conditions.

But after two or three years we moved into a new building, which housed only the women's ward. The work conditions and the conditions of treatment improved significantly.

I don't remember patients whose psychiatric illnesses were the result of wartime experiences. Psychiatric illness is not the result of a traumatic experience, it has different roots.

The results of these horrific experiences were acute neuroses. But I did hear that in the 1950s and 1960s there were cases of placing politically inconvenient persons in psychiatric hospitals. But I never encountered a case like that. We had a very nice, very decent team.

In the 1970s I became the director of the clinic. I could consider myself a good physician, although, of course, you always ask yourself for more.

I was well liked and respected. I retired in 1981. I worked for 17 more years, but only in a psychiatric outpatient clinic on Bardowskiego Street. It was part-time work.