Hana Bruml

Hana's wartime experiences are described in the Identification Card series at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington DC). Her card is #5253 in the series.

Hana Muller Bruml Dies at 78

August 10, 2000

Hana Muller Bruml, 78, who survived three years in Nazi concentration camps during World War II and later became a clinical psychologist and chief of psychology at the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute in Arlington, died Aug. 7 at Arlington Hospital after several strokes. She lived at the Jefferson retirement community in Arlington.

She was born in Prague and was trained as a nurse there. In 1942, she was transported to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in her homeland, where she did nursing work. She was then sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland, where her first husband, Dr. Rudolf Schiff, was killed in 1943.

After the war, while searching Prague for surviving relatives--a task that proved fruitless--she met her future husband, Charles Bruml. He also was looking, without success, to find his family.

Dr. Bruml told The Washington Post in a 1993 interview: "We had a life before Auschwitz, and we had a life afterward. Living, suffering, loving people--it's all part of a life. What I am saying is, one goes on. Life goes on, and one goes on. One has to stay as decent and caring as one can. And because the Nazis were rotten, you don't have to become rotten."

She came to the Washington area after the war and continued her education. She graduated from George Washington University with bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees, all in psychology.

She received her doctorate in 1968 and joined the mental health institute upon its creation in the late 1960s. She was named chief psychologist in 1971 and helped direct and develop training and day-treatment programs at the institute. She retired in 1988.

After retiring, she did volunteer work in the mental health field for Arlington County courts. She also volunteered at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, doing English translations of war-era letters written in German and Czech. A videotaped recollection of the Brumls' experiences during the Holocaust is on record with the museum.

Charles Bruml died in 1998. Dr. Bruml leaves no immediate survivors.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2000/08/10/hana-muller...