The Breaking of Glass Windows and the Maintenance of Glass Ceilings on the 86th Anniversary of Krisstalnacht

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“To me, the giving up of individual responsibility in an authoritarian society leads to loss of conscience and soul, including that of a psychiatrist.” - Michael von Cranach¹

Only a few days after our national election comes the anniversary of Krisstalnacht (the breaking of glass), when from November 8-11, 1938, the Nazis went on a rampage against Jews in the Holocaust, desecrating synagogues, taking them to detention camps, and breaking the glass windows of Jewish shops. By the next year, euthanasia plans for becoming a pure Aryan race also led to the killing of at least 180,000 psychiatric patients over the wartime, so many others, and the halfway success of the genocide of Jews.¹

By the end of our recent election process, related words like Nazis, Hitler, and fascists were being thrown around, though fortunately no major violence that I know of occurred. The glass of shops in the United States were not broken, but those of the buildings in our international wars have been shattered over the last couple of years. However, the glass ceiling for a woman President of the United States was also not broken.

In his landmark book, the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, MD, interviewed Nazi physicians for how they succumbed to their participation in the killing, breaking the psychological glass barrier of the Hippocratic Oath.² If we learn from history, Krisstalnacht must remind us psychiatrists and others of the dangers and limitations of labeling and being labeled the “other.”

We also are familiar with the patient evaluative saying, “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” We in psychiatry could be said to live in glass houses and be reminded not to scapegoat others in our current societal and international conflicts, but do our own soul-searching on how to best help our world to peace and cooperation.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

References

1. Cranach von M. The killing of psychiatric patients in Nazi Germany between 1939-1945. Isr J Psychiatry Rel Sci. 2003;40(1):8-18.

2. Lifton RJ. The Nazi Doctors. Basic Books; 2017.