Ron Leifer:
How were you first brought into contact with the psychiatrists? How did that happen?

Friedrich Zawrel (translated from German):
I first had contact with psychiatrists in 1942/43 through Dr. Winkelmeier after this business with the instructor. 

R.L.:
Do you believe the instructor brought the psychiatrist in to see you? Who brought the psychiatrist in?

No, this instructor was arrested and charged and he ended up in a concentration camp as well. It was the director of the residential home that asked the psychiatrist to come. 

Jacob Mabé (translated from German):
I have one question that I'd like to ask. The thing that struck me when you were talking is that you described Mr. Gross as a "fool". You are against people being described as a "fool" or "idiot" but you described him as one.

When did I say "fool"? I certainly don't remember calling him a fool. 

J. M.:
I thought you said you had met for the first time in my life a fool, but maybe you didn't say that and I misunderstood the German. Perhaps that's not what you wanted to express.

No, I did not. 

Thomas Szasz:
...this psychiatric Nazi imprisonment. What happened after you were freed and something about your life since then. 

I managed to get out of the psychiatric ward with the help of a young female nurse – she helped me escape and this is probably because (after the research I've done now) of a decree of Heinrich Himmler, who decreed that in the psychiatric wards labor force that was even remotely usable should be killed through work – they should be made to work themselves to death. And in my medical history there is a statement by Dr. Gross on the 21st March, 1944 that "he" will be picked up by the police today but "he" managed to elude them. So it seems I was supposed to be sent to a youth slave labor camp. 

Alon Harel:
Did you have any conversations with the psychiatrist? Did they try to find any evidence for the sexual interaction you supposedly had with the instructor? Did you have any...

No, the psychiatrist just asked me whether it happened or there were some other questions that I don't remember in detail and then I was sent away. Dr. ........... and the director of the residential home said that I was going to a sort of hospital to treat my sickness and that's why I was sent to this hospital. 

Richard Vatz:
I'm Richard Vatz of the University of Maryland in the United States. I have a complicated question, if I may. If there is a completely corrupt regime and the teachers in that regime mainfest the corruption of the total regime, do you then say that the teaching profession is particularly corrupt in that regime?

I don't know if I am the right person to answer that question. 

R.V.:
The question is ... this issue. If you have a completely corrupt regime and psychiatry is completely corrupt within that regime, is that a problem of psychiatry or is that a problem of the regime?

I think both. Thirty-six years later I met Dr. Gross. He didn't recognize me, of course I recognized him. And during the discussion, I told the court in Vienna that I know him and that there was terrible pressure on me. He said that there were statements and other psychiatrists confirmed these, that other psychiatrists came and gave other statements and that everything that I had said against Dr. Gross was completely invented and I invented up being charged myself. That was in 1999.

G.A.:
So problems with the incarceration have stayed with you right to the present moment. Is that correct?

Yes, you could say that, exactly as you have put it, because in 1999 the Austrian government finally saw the children of Spielgrund as victims of the Nazi period and our victims' pension was also based on a more recent psychiatric evaluation and on the 5th of February 2000 I again had to meet a psychiatrist and he had a huge pile of files in front of him. He spoke into a microphone and I was so horrified at that time because  the first words that he said into his microphone were the first sentences from the report from Dr. Ealing. This man has 200 charges of human rights abuse and mistreatment of children and in 1946 this happened in Vienna. And yet his files, his reports are still considered valued today! Then a psychiatrist spoke into his dictaphone and said the young man is biologically inferior and comes from a biologicall inferior family. And he read all of these things that Ealing had written soem 57 years before – monstrous neglect in school and all of these other things they have written. 

But I would just like to say that I said to the psychiatrist: "You apparently don't know where these files are from but they are still being used, right up to the year 2000". These reports from the Nazi time were still being used.

G.A.:
Thank you very much. Are there still some questions from the audience? Kate Millett...

Kate Millett:
From what you say, we often get the impression that psychiatry under the Nazis was a kind of aberration, that it was part of a corrupt military government and that psychiatry is actually very different and that the Nazi psychiatrists are not representative and that this was a terrible error that occured that might give this helping profession a bad name and yet everything you say gives a consistency to psychiatry that is amazing. That not only they kept their records, they still found them valid and that they still use the same language, express the same attitudes and that there is one long thread of connections and consistency in this treatment of human beings.

I agree with you, naturally! I think the forensic psychiatry, or the court psychiatry is very much the same because when I wrote to the Austrian judiciary minister and said: "Do you know who Dr. Gross is?" I wrote to him and told him who he was. You have to imagine that this man has written oiut 238 death certificates and written the wrong thing on it but despite this, the Republic of Austria has continued to allow him to work.

G.A.:
Are there other questions? Please let us know who you are, if you like.

From the audience:
I would like to know how the psychiatrists justified using these Nazi files again? Why was he reading these Nazi files again? You must have asked him why he was reading it one year ago. He must have said something about this, no?

Could you please repeat the question.

I would like to know how this psychiatrist could read these Nazi papers one year ago, you must have asked him what possessed him to read through these papers again? 

As a child I met this Dr. Gross and he treated me very badly and 32 years later I met him again. He didn't recognize me but with his expressions – the things that he said - he got worse and worse until it came to the point where I asked whether or not he is a doctor or a public prosecutor and he said: "You can do what you like, you just have to make sure you are on the right side". And I said I was too weak to put myself on the right side now but some people did it and I am sure that you have done far worse things than I ever have. And I made it clear to him and he said to me: "Have you ever had psychiatric treatments?" And I said: "For an academic you have a very bad memory! I certainly can remember it. You must remember your colleague Ealing, ......., .........., Huebsch, Jockel and all of these psychiatrists. You can't have forgotten them. And you won't have forgotten Pavillon 15 and Pavillon 17 and these were moments of terror for him." And he said: "You were there?" and I said: "Well, who do you think is standing in front of you?"  "Why hadn't you said anything about this time for such a long time?" and I said: "I had no reason to and I wanted to never, ever speak about Spielgrund again." And then I didn't want his family to be defamed as well but then I thought it is necessary to take the mask off of this psychiatrist. It wasn't really revenge, I thought it was necessary to do this.

G. A.:
Many thanks for your testimony.