Anna Ornstein

Anna Brunn Ornstein, M.D., a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, July 2, 2025. Anna grew up in the small village of Szendro, in antisemitic Hungary, before World War II. She and her mother were the only ones in her family to survive the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and Plaszow and Parshnitz Labor Camps. Her father and paternal grandmother were killed in Auschwitz, her younger brother, Andrew, died in Bergen-Belsen and the circumstances of her older brother, Paul’s death remain unknown.

After the war, Anna reunited with her childhood sweetheart, Paul Ornstein, who had survived forced labor on the Eastern Front. Together they went to medical school in Heidelberg, Germany, studying alongside former Nazi soldiers, and then emigrated to the United States in 1951. They eventually moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where they raised their family and spent most of their professional careers. They were married for 70 years until Paul’s death in 2017. Together and individually, Paul and Anna wrote hundreds of papers, taught, lectured, supervised and gave workshops, in this country and all over the world. They made significant contributions to the development of psychoanalytic self-psychology.

Anna began her professional life working with children from all socio-economic backgrounds and with people suffering from a range of psychiatric illnesses. In her psychoanalytic writing she examined, among other subjects, recovery from trauma, mourning following loss from genocide, and how to work with children and their families. Her lived experiences animated her professional work and fueled her desire to share her personal history with others. She wrote a collection of stories about what she lived through during the Shoah, titled “My Mother’s Eyes.”

She will be remembered as a loving wife, mother, grandmother and friend. She was a vivacious woman, who loved to dance, cook, have serious conversations, and connect with the many people who were drawn to her.

Anna is survived by her children, Sharone, Miriam and Rafael, and their spouses, Jeff Halpern, Joe Reid and Susannah Sherry, and her grandchildren Zachary Halpern, Noah Halpern and his wife, Annie Kelly, Sarah Reid, Ben Reid, Adina Ornstein, Nicholas Ornstein and Jeremy Ornstein.

Funeral services will take place on Tuesday, July 8, 2025 at 11am at Beth El Temple Center, 2 Concord Avenue, Belmont, MA. The service will be available via livestream at the following link: betheltemplecenter.org/memorial

Burial will follow at Beit Olam East Cemetery, 42 Concord Road, Wayland, MA.

Shiva will be observed on Tuesday, July 8, from 7-9pm at the home of Miriam and Joseph, and on Wednesday, July 9, from 7-9pm at the home of Rafael and Susannah. Service will occur at 7:30pm each day.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Anna’s memory may be made to the Terezin Music Foundation at www.terezinmusic.org/, the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center at www.holocaustandhumanity.org/, or Science Training Encouraging Peace (STEP), 54 Beals Street, Brookline, MA 02446 or online at https://step-gtp.org/

May her memory be a blessing.