The Arthur R. Kravitz Award Recipient of 2018, Anna Ornstein, MD, is interviewed by Steven Varga-Golovcsenko, MD about her dedication to teaching about the Holocaust and the dangers of intolerance. The conversation was recorded in Brookline, MA on Aug 21, 2019.
Anna Ornstein, MD, is a Professor Emerita of Child Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati, a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute, a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Harvard University, and a Supervising Analyst at BPSI. She was born in Hungary in 1927. She survived deportation, ghetto imprisonment, the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the Parschnitz labor camp. After the war, she was reunited with Paul Ornstein, whom she had known growing up in Hungary, and they were married. Soon after, they fled Communist Hungary and attended medical school in Heidelberg, Germany, where both received their degrees. In 1952, the Ornsteins were able to immigrate to the United States, where Anna Ornstein trained in adult and child psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati. There, the couple became leaders in the self-psychology movement, working closely with Heinz Kohut. The Ornsteins were married for over 70 years, until Paul’s death in 2017 at the age of 92.
The Arthur R. Kravitz Award for Community Action and Humanitarian Contributions was established in 2008 to recognize Members of BPSI who have provided noteworthy psychoanalytically-informed service to our broader community. Click here to watch other interviews in this series.
