Discussion Papers Series
Dr. Robert Krell is a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He is a child survivor of the Holocaust, devoted to understanding the problems of Holocaust survivor-families and supporting their well being. Dr. Krell was born in The Hague, The Netherlands on 5 August 1940. He survived the war hiding with the Munnik family and returned to his parents, who had also survived in hiding. In 1951, the Krells moved to Vancouver, British Columbia and Dr. Krell earned his medical degree from The University of British Columbia in 1965 and completed his psychiatric training at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia and Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California.
In his private practice, Dr. Krell treated Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as Dutch survivors of Japanese concentration camps. He established a Holocaust Education Centre in 1994 in order to continue teaching programmes for high school children as a warning of the consequences of unchecked racism and intolerance. For these activities, Dr. Krell received the 1998 State of Israel Bonds Elie Wiesel Remembrance Award. He has published several books, among them And Life Is Changed Forever: Holocaust Childhoods Remembered with Martin Glassner, Medical and Psychological Effects of Concentration Camps on Holocaust Survivors, co-edited with Marc I. Sherman, and The Children of Buchenwald with Judith Hemmendinger. Dr. Krell’s interests remain in the psychiatric treatment of aging survivors of massive trauma and participating in programmes against racism and prejudice.