Amalia Freud

Amalia Nathansohn Freud (18 August 1835 – 12 September 1930) was the third wife of Jacob Freud and mother of Sigmund Freud. She was born Amalia Nathansohn in Brody, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and grew up in Odessa, Kherson Governorate where her mother was from (both cities located in modern Ukraine since 1939).

Amalia Freud
Amalia Freud in 1903
Born
Amalia Nathansohn

(1835-08-18)18 August 1835
Brody, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
Died12 September 1930(1930-09-12) (aged 95)
Vienna, First Austrian Republic
Spouse(s)Jacob Freud
Children8, including Sigmund Freud
RelativesErnst L. Freud (grandson)
Anna Freud (granddaughter)

Amalia Freud died in Vienna, First Austrian Republic at the age of 95 from tuberculosis.

Children

Amalia was 20 years of age when she gave birth to Sigmund[1] (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) (named Sigismund).

Amalia went on to give birth to seven more children (Julius, Anna, Rosa, Marie, Adolfine, Paula and Alexander), born in the following order:

  • Julius (April 1857 – December 1857)
  • Anna (31 December 1858 – 11 March 1955)
  • Regine Debora (Rosa) (21 March 1860 – deported to Treblinka 23 September 1942)
  • Marie (Mitzi) (22 March 1861 – deported to Treblinka 23 September 1942)
  • Esther Adolfine (Dolfi) (23 July 1862 – Theresienstadt 5 February 1943)
  • Pauline Regine (Pauli) (3 May 1864 – deported to Treblinka 23 September 1942)
  • Alexander Gotthold Efraim (19 April 1866 – 23 April 1943)[2]

Character

Amalia was considered by her grandchildren to be an intelligent, strong-willed, quick-tempered but egotistical personality.[3] Ernest Jones saw her as lively and humorous, with a strong attachment to her eldest son whom she called "mein goldener Sigi".[4]

Relationship with eldest son

Just as Amalia idolised her eldest son, so there is evidence that the latter in turn idealised his mother, whose domineering hold over his life he never fully analysed.[5] He did however recount a railway journey with her at the age of 4 amongst his earliest memories and also recalled her instruction in German reading and writing.[6] Late in life he would term the mother-son relationship "the most perfect, the most free from ambivalence of all human relationships. A mother can transfer to her son the ambition she has been obliged to suppress in herself".[7] His tendency to split off and repudiate hostile elements in the relationship would be repeated with significant figures in his life such as his fiancée and Wilhelm Fliess.[8]

See also

References
  3. Peter Gay, Freud (1989) p. 504
  4. Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1964) p. 32-3
  5. Peter Gay, Freud (1989) p. 11 and p. 503-5
  6. De Mijolla, Alain (2005). "Freud-Nathanson, Amalia Malka (1835-1930)". International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis: 629–630.
  7. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on psychoanalysis (1991) p. 168
  8. Richard Stevens, Sigmund Freud (2008) p. 144-6


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