Sigmund Freud’s last days: the tortured body, the smell of his wounds and the pact with his doctor not to suffer

He did not deprive himself of any irony. Devoured by cancer, aware that these were his last days, far from the city and country where he had lived for seventy-nine years, Sigmund Freud approached his death with extraordinary lucidity and with a hint of bitter mockery at Nazism, which had persecuted him, made him a mortal enemy of the Reich until they expelled him from Austria.

Freud died on September 23, 1939Eighty-two years ago, exhausted from laryngeal cancer, acute septic symptoms and when his doctor, Max Schur, honored a pact between them: to apply morphine when the inevitable happened. It was then twenty days that Adolf Hitler he had set out to conquer the world, he had started the Second World War to enthronate a Reich which was to last a thousand years and would last six.

Before the war, Freud had gone into exile in a bitter mood. After the annexation of Austria by the Nazis, Freud was one of Hitler’s main enemies and opponents. Jew and founder of the psychoanalytic school, his figure, known to the whole world, made his murder unpopular: the Reich urged him to be expelled. His books were burned in huge public bonfires where the intelligentsia, the art and the science of this Germany, beacon of culture in Europe, burned.

Freud had no intention of leaving, so the Nazis made him aware of the danger to his family. During a search of the building where the psychoanalytic publishing house operated, which was also his home, the Nazis took his son Martin, they interrogated him for a long day and released him. A week later they did the same with their daughter Anne, imprisoned at the headquarters of the Viennese Gestapo. This convinced Freud of the need to leave.

Her four sisters, who remained in Vienna, died years later in the Nazi death camps. “Anna in the Gestapo”, writes Freud in his diary as a synthesis of what was perhaps the darkest day of his life.

On June 4, 1938, with his wife Martha Bernays and their daughter, Freud began his journey into exile, sick, deteriorated, old and fragile. Previously, he had to sign a document drafted by the Nazis which read: “I, Professor Freud, confirm that after the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria to the Reich, I was treated by the German authorities, and in especially by the Gestapo. , with all the respect and consideration due to my scientific reputation; that I was able to live and work in complete freedom, as well as to continue my activities in any way that I wanted; that I received the full support of all those who intervened in this regard, and that I have no reason to complain ”. Nothing was true. Freud then asked if he could add a sentence to the text and wrote: “I can wholeheartedly recommend the Gestapo to anyone.”

At three in the morning on June 5 Freud and his family crossed the Paris border aboard the Orient Express. They arrived at Dover by ferry, with the illustrious patient’s health more or less complete, better than he himself expected, previous doses of trinitrin and strychnine to overcome the strain.

Freud had a dream on this night trip between Paris and Dover. He told his son a few days later. He dreamed that he was landing at Papensey, the port where Guillermo the Conqueror had landed in 1066. Interpretations aside, Freud was delighted with London. Upon arrival, he passed Buckingham Palace, Burlington House, Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street, all places he identified with fervor. He moved to 39 Elsworthy Road, a house with a garden that was his halfway house. Freud walked through the garden of the house and launched his second irony in three days: “I am almost tempted to shout Heil Hitler.

He lived the year and two months ahead of him with a certain intensity. And some curiosities: he received visits, among which those of HG Well, the Jewish historian Joseph Yahouda, The writer Stefan Zweig and above all Freud warmly welcomed Jaim Weizmann, the famous Zionist leader for whom he had a special affection.

Funny thing: on July 19 Stefan Zweig went to visit him with a character already quite unique at the time: Salvador Dali that immediately made a sketch of Freud and claimed that his skull reminded him of the image of a snail. Freud later wrote to Zweig: “I really have to thank you for bringing the visitor from yesterday. Because until now I had been inclined to regard the surrealists, who apparently adopted me as a patron saint, as absolute fools, say ninety-five percent, as is the case with alcohol. .. This young Spanish man, with his candid and fanatic gaze and his undeniable technical mastery, managed to change my appreciation. There is no doubt that it would be very interesting to study analytically how he managed to screw up this picture ”.

By the end of the year, Freud had recovered enough to treat four patients, with very few interruptions, until the ailment stopped him, near his death. Cancer stalked him with maddening slowness and, in March 1939, he became inaccessible to surgeons. who had already been operated on thirty-three times, had part of his jaw removed and lived the rest of his life with a prosthesis: Freud thus paid tribute to his addiction to tobaccoHe had been a die-hard smoker since the age of 20, never heeded medical advice and smoked until shortly before his death.

In March 1939, already almost devastated by evil, he sent a greeting to the Psychoanalytic Society he founded and that he was celebrating a new birthday. He sent a letter to his disciple and friend, Ernest Jones, who also wrote a fantastic biography which served as the source for these lines. Freud regrets that, even close to the Company, he cannot be at the party: “(…) But, as we are powerless in the face of destiny, we must accept what it has in store for us. So. I must content myself with addressing the company which is celebrating its anniversary – and from afar, being so close – a cordial greeting and the warmest wishes (…) ”

Reluctant to take medication, “I’d rather think in the midst of turmoil than not being able to think clearly”He accepted as the only pain reliever, and from time to time, an aspirin. In August 1939, he collapsed. His wounds gave off an unpleasant odor and his weakness grew: he could no longer walk in the garden and spent hours looking at his favorite flowers through the window of his office, which was his refuge for the sick.

Jones recalls, “The cancer made its way through the cheek to the outer surface and the sepsis increased. The exhaustion was extreme and the suffering indescribable. “

September 19 four days before the end, Jones was summoned to say goodbye to his teacher. “I called him by name while he was dozing. He opened his eyes, recognized me and raised his hand, then released it with a very expressive gesture in which was locked a world of meaning: greetings, wishes, resignation. There was no need to change a word.

On the 21st, Freud said to his doctor: “Dear Schur, you will remember our first conversation. You promised me that you would help me when I couldn’t take it anymore. Now it is only torture and it no longer makes sense ”. The doctor shook his hand and promised to give him the necessary sedatives. Freud thanked her and said, “Tell Anna about our conversation.” Jones says there was no emotion or self-pity in this unforgettable scene: “Just the reality.”

Schur applied a dose of morphine, the patient gave a brief sigh of relief and fell into a deep sleep. He died shortly before midnight on the 23rd. He was cremated at Golders Green Cemetery on the morning of the 26th. His ashes were placed in a Greek amphora, one of his favorite things. There they rest today with the remains of his wife, Marthe Bernay.

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