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Conteúdo (article):

INTRODUCTION

This paper examines the laws enacted by the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
after the Second World War (1939–1945) to compensate survivors of Nazism who had
suffered material losses and physical and psychological harm under the regime. In particular,
it focuses on the negotiations that led to the enactment of the Reparations Law
(Wiedergutmachung) in 1952 and reflects critically on the Federal Compensation Law
(Bundesentschädigungsgesetz) of 1956, with special attention to its recognition of the
psychological suffering of victims of the Shoah. In 1965, the so-called Final Federal
Compensation Law (BEG Schlussgesetz) was introduced, which extended the application
deadline for compensation from April 1, 1958, to December 31, 1969. The primary objective
of this amendment was to accommodate claims of former Warsaw Pact countries residents
who were only able to leave Eastern Europe after the original deadline had passed.¹ These
laws were the result of the Luxembourg Agreement—or Reparations Agreement—signed in
1952 between the FRG, the State of Israel, and the Claims Conference, an organization
representing individuals of Jewish origin who had been persecuted under Nazism.
The investigation presented here focuses on the first two laws and seeks to address the
following question: in what ways was the ground cultivated for psychotherapy to flourish as a
means of promoting well-being and, in a certain sense, as a possible form of reparation for the
horrors perpetrated by Nazi Germany? By examining postwar Western countries, the article
suggests that their approach to the psychological health of Nazi victims was shaped by several
factors, including: the valorization of labor and consumer societies, reinforced by the values

of the capitalist bloc during the Cold War; the global health promotion efforts undertaken by
institutions such as the World Health Organization, and the popularization of knowledge
regarding the psyche, which peaked in the mid-twentieth century through the mental hygiene
movement and the increasing demand for mental health professionals in military contexts. As
the article demonstrates, these developments contributed to the creation of an atmosphere in
which psychotherapy would play a significant role in the post–World War II world.
The reparation policies between Germany and Israel are of particular historical
relevance, as they symbolize the moment Nazi crimes were officially acknowledged.
Moreover, they allow for broader consideration on how nations confront their past and assume
responsibility for human rights violations, prompting debate on the (im)possibilities of
redressing wrongdoing and the limits of justice in contexts of extreme violence. Additionally,
discussing compensation policies provides an opportunity to reflect on the role of the state in
safeguarding mental health and upholding survivors’ right to dignity. To paraphrase physician
and philosopher Joelle M. Abi-Rached¹, this article proceeds from the premise that the
reconstruction of societies devastated by catastrophe must begin with the healing of the
shattered individual.
The historical literature on reparations policy is extensive. Notable contributions
include the work of authors such as Christian Pross², Svenja Goltermann³, Dan Diner⁴, and
Johannes Kaspar⁵, who explore the complex and often controversial relationship between the
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and Israel in the formation and implementation of the
reparations agreement. In addition, scholars such as Alexandra Lehmacher⁶ and Dagmar
Herzog⁷ have examined the impact of these policies on mid-twentieth-century debates
surrounding the origins of psychological suffering. This article seeks to contribute to this
body of work by offering a novel reflection on how a culture that valued psychological

knowledge created the conditions of possibility for mental health care to gain prominence
within the legal framework of German reparations policy.
Methodologically, this study adopts a Global History perspective, with particular
emphasis on the field of the History of Health, which, as historian Marcos Cueto describes,
reflects on "realities of transnational dimensions" through a historical lens that enables
"comparative and global perspectives"⁸ (p.11). Although the article focuses primarily on the
German case, the dynamics under investigation refer to a policy that inspired debates within
the United Nations (UN), contributing to wider discussions on global health, mental health
care for survivors, and support for victims of human rights violations.
It is worth noting that, given very little has been written on this topic in Brazil, the
article includes a brief overview of the historical and political processes that shaped the
negotiations surrounding the implementation of these measures. The aim is to provide a
foundation for inviting Brazilian researchers to engage in further discussion on the
implications and effects of these policies in the Brazilian context. It should also be highlighted
that the article centers exclusively on the policies enacted by the FRG, also known as West
Germany. This is due to the fact that, in the German Democratic Republic (GDR—or East
Germany), reparations policies were limited to the payment of compensation to the Soviet
government. After 1953, when these payments were completed, the GDR declared all its
international reparation obligations fulfilled and refused to negotiate any further
compensation, whether with its “brother states” within the Warsaw Pact or with Israel and the
Claims Conference⁹. As historian Hans Günter Hockerts⁹ notes, East Germany not only
rejected reparation claims from sectors of the Jewish community but also aligned itself with
the Soviet Union’s anti-Israel stance, siding with Arab nations. Indeed, in order to portray the
GDR as a new antifascist state, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany went so far as to assert

that it bore no international responsibility for the “burdensome elements of German
history”⁹.

A FIGHT FOR JUSTICE... BUT WHAT KIND OF JUSTICE?

To understand this historical period, it is necessary to return to the aftermath of the
Second World War, in specific to the Potsdam Conference of July 1945, when the leaders of
the Allied powers met to determine Germany’s future after the defeat of Nazism. The
conference, which brought together U.S. President Harry Truman, British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, was already marred by growing discord
between the United States and the Soviet Union. Later, in order to prevent Germany from
once again threatening the geopolitical balance of Europe¹⁰, the victorious powers split the
country into four military occupation zones, each administered by one of the Allies. From
1948 to 1949, tensions escalated between the capitalist bloc countries and the USSR,
particularly due to the Soviet blockade of rail, waterway, and road access to the city of West
Berlin (the Berlin Crisis, as it became known). This incident consolidated the political
division of the Cold War period and resulted in the emergence of two nations: the Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG) in the Western bloc, and the German Democratic Republic
(GDR) in the Eastern bloc¹¹.
Additionally, in 1947, a resolution by the recently created United Nations endorsed the
establishment of a new state in the Middle East: the State of Israel, a refuge for many Jews
displaced by Nazism. The origins of this resolution date back to the late nineteenth century,
when Jewish leaders—most notably Theodor Herzl — founded the World Zionist
Organization to formalize political Zionism around the struggle for a Jewish national state in
the region of Palestine, regarded as the historical homeland of the Jewish people. However,

scholars often trace the beginning of the process of state formation to 1917, when the British
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Arthur Balfour, issued a document (known as the
Balfour Declaration) addressed to Baron Rothschild, the leader of the British Jewish
community, expressing the United Kingdom’s full support of the Zionist cause. After the
Second World War, the United Nations took the lead in deliberations on the matter, holding a
General Assembly on November 29, 1947. During the Assembly of 56 members, the partition
of Palestine was approved by a vote of 33 in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions¹².
Hence, the reparations agreement for those persecuted under Nazism was led by two
newly formed nations that did not yet exist at the end of the Second World War, even though
the debate on the Nazi material debt had begun during the conflict itself. In a 1941 speech at
the Pan-American Conference of Jewish Leaders organized by the World Jewish Congress in
the United States, Zionist leader Nahum Goldmann (1895–1982) posed the following
question: “Who can doubt that we Jews have every right to international help for European
Jewry after the war? If reparations are to be paid, we are the first to have a claim on them”¹³
(p.372). At that time, many Jewish politicians and intellectuals were concerned with the issue
of vacant inheritance, a legal principle under which property without legal heirs becomes the
possession of the state. According to Nehemiah Robinson, an expert in international law, it
was imperative to prevent the properties of Jews murdered without heirs from reverting to the
German state, which had been chiefly responsible for their deaths. His proposal was that,
“Since many Jews have emigrated to other countries, where they have not yet been able to
find adequate work and vocations, and others will follow, large funds will be necessary for
their colonization and settlement in those or other countries or regions”¹⁴ (pp. 256–257).
With the end of the war, the first restitution law concerning material assets was
enacted in 1947 in the American zone of occupation in Germany. This law addressed

properties claimed by their original owners or their heirs, as well as unclaimed properties.
Similar laws were later introduced in the French and British zones of occupation¹⁵.
These laws, however, were limited in scope, and few survivors were actually eligible
for compensation. In the American zone, for example, only those who resided in Germany
during or after January 1, 1947, were eligible. Likewise, the British zone recognized as
eligible only those who were in the country during or after January 1, 1948. As a result,
individuals who had sought refuge in other countries during the height of Nazi persecution, or
who had emigrated from Germany before 1947 — even after the war had ended—were not
entitled to restitution. It is also worth noting that in the British zone, reparation laws were
only enacted in 1949. This delay was due, in part, to the weak economy in the British-
occupied zone¹⁵ (p.269), and, in part, to the British belief that responsibility for reparations
should lie primarily with Germany itself, rather than with the Allied powers¹⁶ (p.26).
Furthermore, British authorities were reluctant to provide Jewish victims with treatment that
differed from that accorded to non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. According to historian
Ayaka Takei, this position was also influenced by the ongoing “Palestine question”¹⁵ (p.269).
These policies had been implemented solely by the Allied governments occupying
Germany and were limited to the restitution of recoverable material assets that had been
stolen or confiscated by the Third Reich — especially assets that had ended up in the hands of
private beneficiaries⁹. According to legal scholar Johannes Kaspar, these laws served as a
means to “restore a civil and liberal social order.” As he explains, the goal was “to reestablish
orderly property relations and to compensate for damages in proportion to the social position
that had been lost”⁵.
Direct negotiations between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) only
began in 1952 and, as we will see below, were shaped not only by moral considerations but
also by Israel’s urgent economic needs at the time.

A CONTROVERSIAL LAW

In the early 1950s, the State of Israel, facing a severe economic crisis, lacked the
resources necessary to provide food, employment, and adequate living conditions for its
population, which had more than doubled since the country’s founding. While in 1948 Israel
had 650,000 inhabitants, by 1951 the population had reached 1,324,000. In addition to
shortages of raw materials and electricity that hindered factory operations, the volume of
imports far exceeded that of exports¹⁷ (pp. 22–23). It was within this context that Israel’s
highest authorities—including David Horowitz, Director-General of the Ministry of Finance;
Moshe Sharett, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion—made
what political scientist Michael Brecher called the “highly political” decision¹⁸ (p. 76) to
initiate talks with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to demand compensation for the
horrors endured during the war. The issue, however, was fraught with emotional and symbolic
weight for the Jewish people at that time. Establishing a policy of reparations also meant
forging a relationship with the FRG, considered by many Nazi Germany’s successor state. For
some, negotiations were tantamount to forgiving the Shoah—or worse, to selling that
forgiveness⁴ (p. 07). The poet Hersh Leivick, for example, popularized the notion that
reparations were nothing more than “blood money from the Germans”¹⁹ (pp. 14–15).
Notwithstanding this, representatives of the two nations met secretly in Paris in May 1951,
where the Israeli delegation presented a non-negotiable condition to the German
representatives: no talks would proceed unless Germany issued a formal acknowledgment of
guilt for the crimes committed against the Jewish people²⁰ (p. 57).
In response, on September 27, 1951, the Bundestag—the parliament of the
FRG—became the stage for a speech in which Chancellor Konrad Adenauer publicly

acknowledged Germany’s crimes against the Jews and expressed, before the international
press, his government’s commitment to compensating the material losses suffered by Jews
during the Shoah. He stated:

Unspeakable crimes, however, were committed in the name of the German
nation, and they render a moral and material reparations obligatory, both as
far as the individual damage suffered by the Jews concerned and as regards
Jewish property for which individual claimants may no longer be alive. In
this matter, the first steps have been taken, but very much remains to be
done. The Federal Government will see to it that reparations legislation is
speedily passed and is justly carried out. (...) 21 (p.59-60).

Several months after the declaration, a meeting was held between Nahum Goldmann
and representatives of 23 Jewish organizations from various countries at the headquarters of
the World Zionist Organization in New York. This gathering led to the creation of the
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (commonly known as the Claims
Conference)¹⁷ (p. 27). With Goldmann himself as president, the Claims Conference became
the main body representing the interests of major Jewish institutions outside Israel.
Between March and August 1952, delegations from the Government of Israel, the
Claims Conference, and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) met on several occasions to
negotiate the terms of reparations. The agreement reached its final form on August 27 in
Wassenaar, in the Netherlands. According to its provisions, Israel was to receive 3 billion
Deutsche Marks in goods and services over a twelve-year period, while the Claims
Conference received 500 million Deutsche Marks, of which 450 million would be paid in
goods delivered to Israel and subsequently transferred to the agency. The remaining 50
million was paid directly by the FRG as reparations to Jewish-origin Christians who had also
been victims of Nazi persecution¹³ (p. 404). The agreement was officially signed at the Cercle
Municipal in Luxembourg on the morning of September 10, 1952, during a quiet meeting

between Israeli and German delegations, with no speeches delivered by either party⁴ (p. 11).
Despite considerable opposition to it—including dissent within Chancellor Adenauer’s own
party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)—the treaty between Israel and the FRG was
ratified by the Bundestag on March 18, 1953, by a vote of 239 in favor, 35 against, and 86
abstentions.
The Luxembourg Agreement echoed across the globe, provoking a wide range of
responses. In Brazil, a brief news item titled “German-Israeli Reparations Agreement”,
published on November 29, 1952, in the Jornal do Brasil, reported dissatisfaction with the
accord among both Germans and Arabs:

Cairo, 28 (APF) – The newspaper Al Ahram published today a telegram
from the “Association of Free Germans,” asserting to the Arab public that
the German-Israeli reparations agreement had been concluded under
pressure from Anglo-American forces acting on behalf of international
Jewry.
According to the newspaper, the Association—which is based in
Brazil—described the agreement as a “betrayal of both the German and Arab
peoples,” claiming instead that it was the German people who deserved
compensation for the atrocities allegedly committed by Jews against
prisoners of war, as well as for the destruction caused by the Allied forces.
The message concludes: *“If West Germany wishes to pay reparations, it
should do so to benefit the Palestinian refugees.”*²²

Years later, on September 4, 1955, the newspaper O Jornal published an article
entitled “West Germany’s Reparations to Victims of Nazi Plunder: The German People
Redeem Themselves in a Campaign of Humanity and Justice – Compensation Planning.” In
addition to clarifying several rules of the reparation policies in question, the piece sought to

guide the reader toward constructing a new image of Germany—one distinct from that of the
Third Reich. This intention is evident in the excerpt below, which quotes Walter Hallstein,
then Secretary of State at the German Foreign Ministry, who framed the reparations as an act
of redemption:

The Reparations Agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and
Israel cannot undo the harm done to so many Jews. Nevertheless, it
represents a sincere attempt by the German people at redemption. We are
grateful that many Jews, particularly former German Jews, have understood
and appropriately appreciated our stance.²³

This statement reinforces, to some extent, the arguments of historians, such as Svenja
Goltermann³ and Dan Diner⁴, who interpret the Luxembourg Agreement as a strategic
measure by the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to regain the international community’s
postwar acceptance. Approximately fifteen years after the agreement, Nahum Goldmann
himself published an article in O Estado de São Paulo highlighting the reparations policy as
fundamental to the "rebirth of Germany":

We have the case of a regime, succeeding a criminal one, that pays
reparations not only to the victorious nations, as has long been customary,
and to harmed citizens, but to millions of non-citizens and to a state like
Israel, which did not even exist when the Nazi crimes were committed, and
therefore had no legal basis to make claims. It is, therefore, an act of justice,
exemplary and of the utmost importance for the world, for the victims of
Nazism, and for Germany itself.²⁴

Medical historian Christian Pross argues, however, that the FRG operated within a
social climate still heavily burdened by enduring patterns of Nazi antisemitism, and that the
reparations project did not stem from any genuine sense of justice or moral responsibility.

According to him, “the German people did not like the victims, and they certainly did not like
paying for them. Reparations were a burdensome duty imposed by the victors [of the war]”²
(p.03 – emphasis mine). Furthermore, in the early 1950s, upon attaining political autonomy,
the Adenauer government began dismantling the denazification measures previously
implemented by the Allied powers to eliminate Nazi ideology from German and Austrian
culture. This decision, justified by the need to prioritize the country’s social and economic
reconstruction, is described by historian Gustavo Monteiro as an effort to “reject the National
Socialist past while simultaneously adopting official policies clearly aimed at ignoring or
downplaying the relevance of any approach that revisits this theme.”
Traces of persistent antisemitism in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),
especially within Adenauer’s administration, can be identified in the reactions of Fritz
Schäffer, who served as Minister of Finance from 1949 to 1957. Schäffer strongly opposed
the payment of reparations, arguing that it would overburden the FRG’s financial system and
inevitably devalue the German mark. On one occasion, he even stated: “If the Jews want
money, they should raise it themselves by arranging for a foreign loan.”
The Reparations Agreement came into force in 1953, and even its official German
designation—Wiedergutmachung, meaning “making good again” or “reparation”—was the
subject of significant criticism, as it suggested that monetary compensation could somehow
undo or make amends for the crimes committed by Nazi Germany. In Israel, the term adopted
was Shilumim, which, according to historian Hans Hockerts, “means nothing more than
‘payments’ and deliberately rejects any connotation of reconciliation or forgiveness.”
Hockerts also notes that “if you consult Grimm’s dictionary, you will also find that ‘to make
good’—or gutmachen—in German has always meant ‘to replace, to pay, to atone.’”
Nevertheless, the law underwent a major revision just a few years later, as it was based on
legislation drafted during the occupation period, which focused exclusively on material

aspects, and proved inadequate in practical implementation. It is this revision and its
consequences in the field of mental health that I will address in the following section.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF SUBJECTS

In 1955, the compensation law was amended, giving rise to a new law that came into
effect the following year. The Federal Compensation Law (Bundesentschädigungsgesetz or
BEG) introduced several changes in relation to the previous legislation, but it stood out
especially for establishing compensation for physical and psychological harm. Under it, in
addition to those whose assets had been confiscated by the National Socialist regime, any
person persecuted by the regime who experienced a reduction of 25% or more in their earning
capacity—certified by a medical specialist—could apply for compensation.
The increasing attention to mental health becomes evident in the BEG’s recognition of
psychological harm as a compensable injury, particularly through the inclusion of services
related to psychological care among the possible forms of compensation. In §29, for instance,
the provision of therapy is listed first within the categories of reparations, among items such
as monetary pensions, retraining subsidies, capital compensation. This development raises a
question: how did psychotherapy come to be viewed both as a tool for promoting well-being
and as a legitimate form of compensation for victims of Nazism for the suffering they
endured? It is important to note that at no point does German legislation claim to undo the
harm caused during the Hitler years; rather, it presents a set of measures aimed at providing
some degree of comfort and the possibility for victims to rebuild their lives—psychotherapy
being one such measure.

According to historian Dagmar Herzog, the 1956 law was designed to address the
needs of "lesser people," those who did not even possess material assets to claim. It was a law
directed toward:

(...) often poorer Jews, and often Jews from Eastern European territories,
including parts of Poland, that had been part of the German Reich as of
1937. The only property they had, as it were, was their labor power. Hence
the need to prove the 25 percent or more diminishment of the ability to be
self- supporting – in whatever new land had become their refuge. 6 (p.94).

In a certain sense, Herzog’s assertion helps illustrate the aims of this law as a
mechanism of victim rehabilitation and reintegration into the labor market. This becomes
clearer in §33, where the following condition is specified:

(1) The degree of reduction and impairment of earning capacity shall be
assessed on the basis of the extent to which the victim is mentally and
physically capable in general working life. The occupation pursued before
the start of the persecution or a vocational training already begun or
demonstrably intended before that date shall be taken into account.
(2) If the persecuted person was not yet in gainful employment due to his
age before the start of the persecution, the reduction and impairment of
earning capacity shall be measured according to the degree of physical or
health impairment which would result in adults with the same degree of
injury. 29 .

Even the previously mentioned §29, included under the second title of the law,
“Damage to body or health”, lists “Retraining allowance” among the compensatory measures,
alongside others such as therapy, pension payments, capital compensation, housing
allowances, and provisions for bereaved individuals.

Thus, one can observe the construction of a legal framework where physical and
psychological health were intimately linked to the ability to work. These laws emerged during
a period in which market theories and the concept of human capital were being developed by
economists like Mincer, Schultz, and Becker. As journalist and historian Sérgio Gonçalves
explains, individuals are considered essential to the capitalist production system within this
theoretical framework, where the concept of human capital “prescribes that each person is a
potential worker and consumer, and it is based on these qualities that the social system of
production is designed” (p. 23).
This refers to a historical moment in which major European nations were devastated,
while the United States was increasingly asserting itself as a global capitalist
power—especially in light of its rivalry with the USSR\'s socialism, where both nations were
on opposing sides. In the U.S., for instance, many technologies initially developed for military
purposes were repurposed and adapted for domestic use. As military jets broke the sound
barrier, modern and fast automobiles appeared in stores, enabling consumerist ideals among
middle-class families (p. 256). Within this context, the development of human capital theory
allows us to understand how, just as education became oriented toward shaping citizens’
devotion to labor and consumption (p. 23), the right to therapy expressed in the BEG reflects
a means of reintegrating shattered individuals into the spheres of work and consumption. In
this sense, the psychological sciences became essential to the advancement of these
objectives.
Moreover, despite the widespread sense of horror that gripped society in the aftermath
of wartime atrocities, this period was also marked by a paradoxical sense of
hope—illuminated by the new scientific and technological knowledge propelled by the
conflict. This sentiment extended to the realm of health. With the development of penicillin
and insecticides such as Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), the eradication of diseases,

as well as broader efforts to promote global health, appeared increasingly attainable. Such
enthusiasm contributed to the creation of institutions like the World Health Organization, one
of the key branches of the United Nations, which advanced the understanding of health as “a
state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of
disease or infirmity” (p. 30).
It is in this context that we observe the increasing valuation of sciences dedicated to
psychological care within political discourse. Furthermore, by the mid-twentieth century,
psychological knowledge enjoyed significant cultural legitimacy in Western societies, leading
to what some scholars have described as a “psy culture.” Two events were crucial to the rise
in the popularity of psychoanalysis in the United States and to the beginning of its
medicalization: the emergence of the Mental Hygiene Movement and the First World War.
The Mental Hygiene Movement, which emerged in the early decades of the twentieth
century, initially advocated for more humane conditions in psychiatric institutions. However,
it quickly expanded beyond the hospital setting and gained significant traction in political and
social spheres, particularly as it was appropriated by elites to support colonialist projects
grounded in eugenic ideals. Although it underpinned extreme measures of racial segregation
in countries such as the United States and Germany, mental hygiene played a key role in
bringing mental health and illness into broader social and cultural discourse and in
popularizing psychological knowledge among the general public. By presenting hygienic
practices as a solution to psychological issues—placing them alongside physical
diseases—mental hygiene contributed to the increasing medicalization and objectification of
emotions. Once categories of mental health and illness were objectified and quantified, it
became possible to calculate the time and cost of psychological treatments, thus contributing
to the construction of “the new role of psychotherapies in the capitalist market of the
twentieth century” (p. 153).

In the face of the horrors committed by Nazi Germany in the name of racial hygiene,
the end of World War II not only weakened mental hygiene projects but also spurred profound
reflections in the West on the nature of humanity. Concepts such as aggression, violence,
death, influence, and mass psychology began to shape discussions on overcoming of
psychological trauma and developing policies aimed at promoting mental health.
Consequently, the dynamics of psychiatric institutions were increasingly compared to
concentration camps, intensifying debates on psychiatric reform (p. 40). Additionally, the
introduction of psychiatric drugs such as lithium and phenothiazines in the 1940s and 1950s
enabled many individuals to live freely outside institutional walls through psychotherapy
combined with ongoing medication (pp. 205–206). Moreover, since the onset of the First
World War (1914–1918), countries like the United States and the United Kingdom had begun
recruiting mental health specialists to serve alongside the military—both to assess the mental
and emotional fitness of soldiers and to treat post-war trauma (p. 153). In response to the
growing demand for professionals in the psychological fields, these governments funded
several projects under the auspices of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, resulting
in the expansion of university training programs and public education campaigns (p. 153).
Such measures significantly promoted the dissemination of psychological knowledge beyond
institutional settings, popularizing theories of mental functioning among the general public
and spreading them across much of the Western world.
This is what we refer to here as “psy culture”, a phenomenon described by
psychologist and researcher Sérvulo Figueira as one in which individuals within a given
society adopt ideas and theories originating from psychological knowledge, integrating them
into “almost every significant aspect of culture” (p. 104). Through it, ideas and concepts
related to this body of knowledge are appropriated across diverse social and cultural spheres,

including the arts, politics, advertising, and mass communication, thus influencing the
functioning of institutions.
In the 1960s, for example, sociologist Peter Berger observed how conceptions drawn
from psychological knowledge, especially psychoanalysis, had become embedded in
philosophy, domestic relations, religion, and various other aspects of life. He argued that this
popularization transformed a set of ideas previously confined to specialist discourse into “a
cultural phenomenon, a way of understanding the nature of man and of organizing human
experience on the basis of that understanding” (p. 12).
From this perspective, the significance acquired by psychotherapy and mental health
care in compensation laws reflects the influence of psy culture in the legal sphere as well. It is
in this context that, in the postwar period, psychological knowledge emerged as a key vector
for translating unspoken emotions through the language of psychic trauma, offering not only a
way to articulate suffering but also a path toward healing in a way material compensation
alone could not.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The paper demonstrates how early compensation policies, initially focused on material
assets, proved insufficient and paved the way for psychotherapy to be recognized as an
alternative means of addressing what is otherwise irreparable. The analysis thus reveals the
impact of psy culture on the political and legal spheres of a society that bore witness to the
atrocities perpetrated under Nazism and during the Second World War.
The enactment of the Federal Compensation Law (BEG) must be situated within a
broader context, where the postwar years brought to Western consciousness not only the need
to reconstruct societies, but also to rebuild the individual. United Nations Resolution 60/147,

adopted in 2005, outlines basic principles and guidelines to be applied in favor of victims of
gross violations of human rights. Point 19 of section IX affirms the necessity for states to
adopt restitution policies that “whenever possible, restore the victim to the original situation
before the gross violations” (p. 7). Points 20 and 21 of the same section further emphasize the
importance of addressing both physical and mental harm, highlighting medical and
psychological care as essential components of compensation and rehabilitation. These
considerations demonstrate how mental health and the role of psychotherapy have become
key elements in the discourse on care and treatment for victims of human rights violations—a
legacy of the struggle for compensation of the figures examined in this article.

20. Compensation should be provided for any economically assessable
damage, as appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and
the circumstances of each case, resulting from gross violations of
international human rights law and serious violations of international
humanitarian law, such as:
(a) Physical or mental harm;
(b) Lost opportunities, including employment, education and social benefits;
(c) Material damages and loss of earnings, including loss of earning
potential;
(d) Moral damage;
(e) Costs required for legal or expert assistance, medicine and medical
services, and psychological and social services.
21. Rehabilitation should include medical and psychological care as well as
legal and social services 43 (p.07-08).

Moreover, the compensation policies secured through the efforts of prominent Jewish
individuals and Holocaust survivors ultimately laid the groundwork for other forms of
reparations directed toward political and social groups that have experienced injustice or

violations. In Brazil, for example, Law 3023/2022, enacted at the end of 2023, provides
compensation to the children of individuals who were forcibly isolated from their families in
the first half of the twentieth century due to leprosy (Hansen’s disease).
To consider avenues for justice and reparation is also to reflect on human rights and on
the confrontation of social and psychological vulnerabilities that arise from traumatic
experiences and from the life and health conditions endured by victims of authoritarian
regimes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1: Abi-Rached, JM. Post-war mental health, wealth, and justice. Traumatology, 2009; 15,
(4):55-64.
2: Pross, C. Paying for the past: The Struggle over Reparations for Surviving Victims of the
Nazi Terror. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
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