56
PARTISAN REVIEW
visor made public, really demonstrate repressed ill will
(Verdriingung)?
Is it possible that her "accuser" was unduly biased, because by (un–
consciously?) denigrating her character he was elevating Melanie
Klein's? For it seems to be a large leap to suggest from the contents
of one letter written in 1939 that the old aunts were not leaving
Vienna because of Freud's early displeasure at being displaced by
these younger siblings.
If
so, then why did Freud see to it that they
would be taken care of in their old age, both before the
Anschluss
and
afterward?
Leupold-Lowenthal's careful documentation, I believe, should
lay such foolish notions to rest - through his detailed chronicle of
events. It demonstrates, among other things, that every day the
Nazi machinery "improved" on itself, and followed up each cruel
edict with a yet crueler one.
At this conference the history of psychoanalysis was discussed
as part of Austrian history. As LA.H.P. President Alain de Mijolla
so aptly stated in his introduction: "The history of the past cannot be
dissociated from that of the present. Psychoanalysis is inextricably
mixed up with the events that characterize the twentieth century
. . . both on the individual and the sociopolitical level." He sug–
gested as well that the participants should employ and combine the
rigorous methods of historians with those of prudent psychoanalysts.
Some did and others didn't. And in their spare time, they ate Sacher
torte with Schlagobers. On these occasions, they came face to face
with the run-of-the-mill Austrians and with their anti-Semitism,
which under the surface and in spite of many exceptions remains as
virulent as it was in 1938.
