AN AUSCHWITZ IN TEXAS?

By Kermit Klaerner      

            The following article by R. Sanford Kiser, MD, is copied from Texas Psychiatrist, February/March 2005.  Dr. Kiser is the President of the Board of Trustees, Texas Academy of Psychiatry.  He writes:

          In January 2005 the world marked the 60^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp of World War II.  Over a million people, mostly Jews were killed there.  Other victims included political prisoners, Russian prisoners of war, protestant fundamentalists, Poles, or person considered “deviant,” “unnecessary,” or “inconvenient.”  Those that survived had been starved, beaten, abused, and demeaned to a subhuman level.

          We shudder when we contemplate the atrocities committed at Auschwitz and the other Nazi death camps.  We like to tell ourselves that Auschwitz was a historical aberration, a deviant event that will never happen again.  We like to say that it happened a long time ago and in a place far away.  We convince ourselves that Auschwitz was perpetrated by a megalomaniac madman, the likes of which the world will never see again.

          But the simple fact is that these inhuman acts to other human beings occurred—not in some crude, unsophisticated primitive backwater—but in the heart and soul of Europe, in the best that human civilization had to offer in the arts, literature, theology, and science.

          How could this be?  How could this be? 

          The answer is that dark beasts were lurking within the shadows of the culture.  The beasts have names.  Apathy and Indifference.

          What were the common people thinking and doing or not thinking and not doing to allow these beasts to run wild?  The answer is straightforward.  They were turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to events around them.  They held firm to the notion of their good life and shut out any evidence that would threaten that illusion or their position in it.

          In Texas today, we are similarly proud of our culture and our contribution to the advance of civilization.  Could we be similarly, deaf, blind, and dumb to an Auschwitz in our midst?

          Mental illness is a living hell that can put even Auschwitz into the pale background.  How many of our fellow Texans are trapped in the confines of mental illness without adequate access to care?  Without the knowledge that their misery is treatable?  Without even knowing that their agony is an illness?

          If you believe that an analogy between mental illness and internment at Auschwitz is far-fetched, consider the numbers of the mentally ill incarcerated in jails and prisons due to lack of treatment facilities or proper triage methods.  (Remember the dark beasts form the shadows, Apathy and Indifference.)

          If you maintain that the horrors at Auschwitz are far beyond those of mental illness in Texas, remember recent events of mentally ill parents drowning their children, stoning them to death, and dismembering their arms.

          The dark beasts are with us, but they do not have to control us.  The Texas Legislature is now is session, and we, as Texas psychiatrists, have the power to speak out to our legislators about these issues.  At this point in time, we have the opportunity to break the choke hold of Apathy and Indifference upon the human condition in Texas.

          Dr. Kiser’s analogy has merit, since Texas is number 48 in the amount of funding allotted for mental health services in the United States.  Many of our fellow Texans find themselves “trapped in the confines of mental illness” because they cannot find (or cannot afford) proper care.  Taylor County’s jail houses an average of 40 persons with mental illnesses on any given day because there is no other place for them to be housed.  Is this humane?  I say no!  Until we get off our apathy and indifference and start encouraging funding for adequate care for persons with mental illnesses, then we too are “deaf, blind, and dumb to the Auschwitz in our midst.”

Kermit Klaerner is the Director of the Mental Health Association in Abilene.  Mental Health Matters is sponsored by the Mental Health Association, phone (325) 673-2300, e-mail mhaa@bitstreet.com.  Need help?  Call the Hope Line (325) 677-7773.