Jacques Szaluta: Psychohistorian and Holocaust Survivor

Jacques Szaluta (August 22, 1933–October 2024) was a hidden child in the Holocaust, a European historian and psychohistorian, a psychoanalyst, and for many years served as the moderator of the Psychohis-

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tory Forum’s in-person work-in-progress meetings. After several years of decline, he died in October 2024 after having the great pleasure of seeing his grandchild, David, named for the father Jacques barely knew before he was killed in the Shoah. Professor Szaluta is survived by David’s mother, Elizabeth, and a second daughter.

Dr. Szaluta was born to Polish-Jewish parents who met and were living in France when the Nazis invaded it in 1940. His father was rounded up and not heard from again while his mother took him to Vichy, France, using false papers. As the Germans tightened their grip on Vichy, she eventually arranged for him to be smuggled into Switzerland, where he lived with a schoolteacher’s family and discovered his love of learning. In a lengthy 1999 Clio’s Psyche interview, “Jacques Szaluta: Witness to History, Psychohistorian, and Psychoanalyst,” conducted mostly by Ken Fuchsman and with me, there is considerable detail on his early life. After the war, his mother chose to remain in France but organized a way for him to come to America to stay with a sister in New York City. Regrettably, her sister soon placed Jacques in a Hebrew orphanage in Yonkers, but he could visit on weekends. After being drafted and stationed in Germany in the U.S. Army, Jacques decided to become a teacher, a career he thoroughly enjoyed.

Jacques graduated from New York University in 1959 and took his doctorate at Columbia University in 1969, where he was profoundly influenced by the brilliant psychohistorian Rudolph Binion. In 1965, he began teaching history at the Merchant Marine Academy on Long Island, where his distinguished teaching was recognized in 1994. Szaluta retired in 2001 as a full professor emeritus. He remained extremely active at the academy, mentoring other professors and attending sports and other activities. Jacques was also a proud Research Associate of the Psychohistory Forum. He undertook psychoanalytic training and practiced as a psychotherapist for 40 years. Professor Szaluta was a fierce defender of psychohistory, actively fighting against the American Historical Association’s downplaying of it.

Among his many publications are Pétain For and Against: A Survey of the Historical Debate (Vantage Press 1973), psychohistorical interpretations of movies such as Jaws, and a series of articles on Freud’s ego ideals. An impressive 35,000 copies of the French edition of his psychohistory book Psychohistory Theory in Practice (Peter Lang, 1999) were printed; a colleague recalled seeing it sold in a department store in Paris. The English edition won the prestigious Gradiva Award granted by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis.

For a man who had suffered terrible losses, Jacques Szaluta found enormous joy in life as a professor, psychohistorian, scholar, and especially with his third wife, Susan, who regrettably died at age 68 in 2019, as well as with his daughter Elizabeth, and his grandson David.

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