The Importance of Leadership in the Anniversaries of Kristallnacht and the Death of Eleanor Roosevelt

PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

Today is the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht, reminding the world of the escalating violence of broken Jewish store windows and more by Hitler and the Nazis, eventually leading to the Holocaust. The world’s response was minimal as war soon broke out. Today is also the anniversary of the burial of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), in 1962. What a different moral and mental health emphasis.

On Sunday morning, as colleagues and I were discussing differences of opinion online, my wife was serendipitously watching the 2013 Ken Burns PBS show on the Roosevelts. Although FDR led the United States to victory, he turned away scores of potential Jewish refugees during the war. What caught my attention, though, was the segment on Eleanor.

After FDR died at the end of the war, among many other things, she led the endeavor that produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To do so, she gathered leaders of many religions, colonists, and representatives of those colonized. It was passed in December 1948. She supported the establishment of the state of Israel around the same time. Eleanor realized that the even greater challenge was to operationalize the human rights principles. As our current wars and discrimination toward others reveals, that challenge is still prominent.

Those universal human rights include those with mental illnesses, who have traditionally been rejected by societies and were the first targets of the Nazis. Psychiatrists, at times, have even participated in political repression, including in Russia, China, and Nazi Germany. We also have a secondary ethical priority to our colleagues.

Learning lessons in the model of leadership from Eleanor Roosevelt can help us to fulfill our own role in human rights and honor her legacy.

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 presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. 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.