The effect of life in a concentration camp upon the behavior and personality of former inmates is explored through case studies. The principal findings are based upon a limited control group of 547 Jewish women. The formation of the structural characteristics normally found in institutions of detention was prevented by unique self-attitudes, isolation, and the psychological effects of trauma. Following liberation, the social patterns appear to be those of desocialization, manifested in nascent person-to-person, dependent relations, which lack many of expected elements of group structure.