Robert Krell (M / Netherlands, 1940), Holocaust survivor
Robert Krell (M / Netherlands, 1940), Holocaust survivor.
- KEYWORDS : <Netherlands> <Hidden Children>
Biography
Robert Krell was born in The Hague, Holland on August 5th, 1940. He was hidden from 1942 to 1945 with the Munnik family. After the war he reunited with his parents, who also survived in hiding. In 1951, the Krells moved to Vancouver, Canada. He became a child psychiatrist and a pioneer in Holocaust education. On January 27th, 2012, he was the Keynote speaker at the United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Author of books on the Holocaust.
USHMM (2012)
Dr. Robert Krell (The Netherlands/Canada) 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 then 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 programs 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, coedited 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.
Dr. Robert Krell was the keynote speaker during the Holocaust memorial ceremony in General Assembly Hall on 27 January 2012. Dr. Krell’s personal story of survival and perseverance is a moving testimony to the endurance of the human spirit, while serving as a reminder that the horrors of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.