Emanuel Tanay (March 5, 1928 – August 5, 2014) was a Polish-American physician, a forensic psychiatrist, and a Jewish

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

Early life

Tanay was born in

Wilno Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...

, Poland on March 5, 1928, but the family soon moved to

Miechów Miechów is a town in Poland, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, about north of Kraków. It is the capital of Miechów County. Population is 11,852 (2004). Miechów lies on the Miechówka river, along European route E77. The area of the town is , ...

, a small community just north of

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

.
Emanuel Tanay - March 16, 1987, Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive. His mother, Betty Tenenwurzel, was both a physician and dentist and his father, Bunim Tenenwurzel, was a dentist. He survived by being hidden in the Catholic monastery of Mogila in Kraków, Poland. In 1943 Tanay escaped from occupied Poland with his mother and sister to Slovakia and then Hungary. They were liberated in January 1945 in Budapest. He immigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He did his psychiatric residency at Elgin State Hospital in

Elgin, Illinois Elgin ( ) is a city in Cook and Kane counties in the northern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Elgin is located northwest of Chicago, along the Fox River. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 114,797, the seventh-large ...

Career

Tanay was Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

Medical School in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

.
Virginia Tech Mass Murder: A Forensic Psychiatrist's Perspective, Emanuel Tanay, MD, J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 35:2:152-153 (2007).

Death

Tanay died on August 5, 2014, following a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. He was 86.

Books

*
American Legal Injustice
Behind the Scenes with an Expert Witness.'' 2010, Jason Aronson. *
Passport to Life
Autobiographical Reflections on the Holocaust.'' 2004, Forensic Press. *
The Murderers
'' 1976, Bobbs-Merrill.

Hoax

A fictional report "A German's View on Islam" falsely attributed to Dr. Tanay is often quoted in relation to Islamist terrorism.

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanay, Emanuel Holocaust survivors 20th-century Polish Jews Polish emigrants to the United States American forensic psychiatrists 1928 births 2014 deaths Deaths from prostate cancer