Amazing person. Thanks for telling us about her story as I did not know at all...
5
Having experienced what is worst in humanity, Mrs. Buck called us all back towards what is best. Requiescat in pace.
12
Though very grateful for the homage paid to Dorothea’s life and efforts, I consider the usage of “mentally ill” to be a profound bastardization of what she acutely referred to as “(ex-) usars and survivors of phychiatry”
The framing of “mental health” and “mental illness” is possibly one of the most pervasive forms of continued oppression of people that have experienced psychic distress.
8
We can, and rightfully so, condemn the Nazi's policies towards its citizens deemed substandard or defective. It must remain standards how not to do so. I would hope all NYT readers unanimous here. Yet, North American Mental Health practices where not exempt from cruelty and ignorance. Not that long ago.
6
“The nazis declared her schizophrenic”: in other words used diagnosis as a weapon.
6
This is a great and caring woman I had heard about in my endless readings about mental illness as I became a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Not a lot has changed for true improvement in the care of the mentally ill. I am struck by her desire "for talk" and I insist on it in my practice at a community health clinic. Constantly the required time the providers are allowed is biting at our heels, but I insist that talk - real, raw talk - is most of the short visit. I find it far more important than the medications I am prescribing. I think everyone - everyone out there - could help with mental illness by true listening. Give people the gift of silence when people are telling their stories so they can think, gather thoughts, cry, or just feel the healing space. Honestly say you're sorry when they've been through awful things. Sometimes they have never heard that from someone. We tend to be thinking of what to say or are about to "one up" someone's story while they talk. Don't. I cannot tell you the number of patients whose stories I have heard who have said they held it all in, because they didn't think anyone really cared. The saddest are the older people (boomers) who told and were not believed, for to be believed, it would ruin a family or a marriage or a reputation, etc. Those are the saddest tales and that person just begins to not trust and just shut down. They told someone they trusted and were told they were a liar.
You'd be amazed at the pain.
14
@flenzy You are a person of compassion; a servant's heart! May your career flourish, healing many as the years pass. More lives would be healed if we all took time to shut our mouth and LISTEN. Thank you for sharing!
5
When I first encountered her story in middle school, I thought she was a saint. Have I followed her? No. Reading this obituary, I haven’t changed.
4
I was reminded of Susan Sheehan's book, "Is There No Place On Earth For Me" about the life of Sylvia Frumkin, a schizophrenic. Like "Ironweed", it too has been a guide to grasping an understanding of the inner life of people on the edge. Ms. Buck gave much more to life than she took.
10
Have we come very far since the time of her suffering? I think not. Look at our prisons, where we warehouse our mentally ill, who have no access to psychiatrists with whom they can talk, and from whom they could hope to receive humane treatment.
25
A rare exception in our otherwise destructive species.
14
In the 1970's a German friend of mine wanted to marry a GI and she had to disclose her family history, her mother had schizophrenia. The marriage "permit" for her would only be given if she were to have a sterilization. So, this has been going on, and I believe it still does in some parts of the world. There is also a great movie on Amazon Prime called Never look away.
13
@Hulagirrrl
"To be an artist is to never avert ones' eyes." Pretty sure a quote from the great late Japanese film director "Akira Kurosawa." What a brave woman. Thanks for the movie suggestion.
2
God speed, Dorothea. And, thank you.
17
“I experienced the psychiatric system as being so inhuman because nobody spoke with us,” she said in a 2007 lecture at a conference organized by the World Psychiatric Association. “A person cannot be more devalued than to be considered unworthy or incapable of conversation.”
Washington Post, 10/20/19
23
Dorothea Sophie Buck-Zerchin is such a shining example of the inner strength of the human spirit for transcending not only the horrors of Hitler, but for giving voice to those with mental illness. What an absolutely amazing woman!
21
Thank you for telling Ms. Buck's story. What a gift she is to all of us.
15
Thank you for this fine obituary. The photograph of Dorothea Buck at the end is extraordinarily moving. Sit tibi terra levis.
31
What a life! And well lived. Rest in peace.
22
Take heed,we are not that far from those atrocities. Our government has but a few steps to go.
48
@S Mirchell There was a recent letter in our local paper. The author complained about what he perceived as the disproportionately high cost of educating special needs students and the coincidentally higher school property taxes. The author thought the long closed Pennsylvania State Hospitals (asylums) ought be brought back into use instead.
Behind a lone author who gets his opinion to the editorial page, there might be many readers who agree.
33
@Gary Madine - There is nothing wrong with questioning the high cost of educating some children with disabilities when it is really only a $40,000 per year baby sitting program. Just because it makes the parents feel like they are sending their kids to school and the kids like to ride the school bus is not a reason to waste valuable resources when there is no sign that it makes a difference.
6
@S.L. Do you speak from experience? If so, I am very sorry for you. The special education programs I know of are very effective and enable many, many students to go to college and/or receive training that allows them to become productive members of the community. Everyone deserves an appropriate education.
45
In the 1927 case of Buck v Bell, the attorney for Carrie Buck--a woman who bore a child conceived via rape--argued that "a small faction in control of government" could give rise to the tyranny of control by a few, in this case, doctors acting as agents of the state. This woman's obituary, and the case of Carrie Buck, who shared Dorothea's last name but was unrelated, we are reminded that the most vulnerable among us bear a disproportionate burden when leaders are looking to point a finger at the source of our ills. Dorothea Buck and Carrie Buck's cases are not unrelated to the current targeting of immigrants, the poor, or gay/lesbian people. A scapegoat is a scapegoat, and I fear we have not learned from the cost they bore.
83
If ever anyone deserved to live such a long span, it’s Mrs. Buck.
Stunningly correct, also, is her comment that in the absence “elementary humanity,” art is of little account.
54
@Ambroisine
Except when a work of art might be the one thing that might spur a conversation, even between two strangers, which Ms Buck suggests can break through a sense of isolation. Many people are afraid to be kind, or even to start up even a brief conversation that might make someone's day, their own or anyones. Others make it a habit and some have only to practice the art in itself.
2
What a beautiful soul she was indeed!
“As long as we talk to each other, we don’t kill each other.” simple words but with a profound message. Human beings when make use of reason, logic and justice while talking to each other expressing their anger and misgiving about other party, see better and peaceful results.
Not to oversimplify the tragedy of the Holocaust, nobody was apparently brave enough to stand up and convey the clear message to the Nazis on how unjust and illogical their philosophy was. Not many came forward, not the Church and not many German intellectuals.
43
@AB, Those that did suffered for it - eg the young members of the White Rose Movement - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose
1
@AB, :
actually, in certain places the Catholic Church did try to help the victims of Naziism.
See: https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/hidden-children-of-the-holocaust-belgian-nuns-and-their-daring-rescue-of-young-jews-from-nazis
I also knew a man who as a young boy during WWII was hidden in a convent along with many other Jewish children. If discovered, all of them would have been killed. His parents both went to Auschwitz. The Catholic Church in some ways, in some places, did risk everything by hiding Jewish children and in some cases families.
3
@Colin Ferris
There were professors who supported the young students. When they were arrested, they were accused of treason and beheaded. The White Rose Movement was led and populated by very brave people; perhaps they did not all believe that death was certain for their rebellion. Their stories resonate still; how many of us would have written against a Nazi regime, risking torture and death?
3
Thoughtful. intelligent and sensitive despite the inhumanity directed at her, she managed to live a long productive life. Someone who felt he trauma of a brutal war sounds very sane to me. RIP.
64
As usual I’m slightly off topic. The mother of friend from Hamburg who also was a Buck, was born in 1900 and died in 2001 just shy of her hundred and first birthday.
My off topic comment is could they have been related? My friend's great grandmother was Danish and a Buck by marriage.
8
What I found confusing about this story is that the writer refers to Dorothea Buck as "Mrs. Buck," even though it does not mention that she married nor does it indicate that she is survived by a spouse nor that a spouse predeceased her. In fact, the article states that she was barred from marrying as a young woman. Why does the Times refer to her as "Mrs."?
18
@Beth Ann Bryant-Richards It is the custom in Germany and many other countries to address elder women as "Mrs." regardless of marital state as a form of respect.
I've seen it in the French-speaking part of Canada as well.
23
@Ann Hatzakis There was a time when unmarried women of any age were addressed as "Fräulein" ("Miss") to distinguish them from married women ("Frau") of any age. Fräulein is so anachronistic now that "Frau" serves the same purpose as "Ms" in the United States - even if you know that a 24-year-old woman is single, you will address her as Frau. I see no reason why the NYT couldn't have simply referred to her as Ms. Buck.
12
The New York Times public editor blog addresses this in a great blog entry. Their policy is to refer to women as Ms. until they know their preference, and use that. Information about Mrs. Buck would have primarily come from German sources, and in German, there’s no Miss, Ms. or Mrs. but only Frau. And that translates to Mrs. Most likely the reason for the appellation.
So, when you see Miss, Ms. or Mrs. it’s because that’s what the person wanted to be used.
7
In 1927, in the Buck vs. Bell case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that forcible sterilization of the "feeble-minded" was constitutional "for the protection and health of the state." Justice Holmes wrote, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Nazi doctors, on trial for their crimes, often pointed to this ruling in their defense. That ruling has never been overturned. Mrs. Buck's story is another in the infinite numbers of reasons why we must remember the past so it cannot be repeated.
158
About this: “ By concealing both her psychiatric history and her forced sterilization, Mrs. Buck was able to enroll in 1942 in a private art school in Frankfurt...”, why would she have needed to “conceal” her forced sterilization? Why would anyone at the school have reason to know about it? Very odd wording.
I sometimes wonder whether we have come as far as we think we have,min treatment of the mentally ill. Although patients now have free access to information on drug treatment for schizophrenia and psychosis, the drug-centric approach to those disorders is back in full force.
20
@Passion for Peaches the article describes one of her hospitalizations as lasting nine months, and there were more, so I think the point is that she would have had to conceal the gaps in her life/employment in a school application.
17
@Passion for Peaches
When I was 17 I was in a mental hospital for 10 months. I’m in my 70’s now and it’s still difficult to discuss. I understand perfectly why she didn’t include this on her application.
This whole story makes me so sad. I wish I had known of her while she was alive. Regardless, she’s an inspiration. A beautiful person. And, an amazing artist.
80
@Passion for Peaches Regarding your first paragraph -- because she was dealing with Nazis.
34
It's astonishing to try and consider just how much societal change occurred over the course of Dorothea's life. And how wonderful that she helped to drive change in mental health, informed by a lived experience that could so understandably have crushed a person. What an amazing story.
65
Nobility in its purest form. Requiesce in pace.
96
Lovely woman. I love her sculpture representing mother and child bond. Moving to see her as a young woman and then as a much older woman.
85
@Scientist
I’m especially struck with the echo in Buck’s sculpture of the mid-20th Century artistic spirit that seemed to reflect deep wounds from the first half of the century. That heavily-worked, minimally-formed human likeness reminds me of Giacometti yet is softer, fuller, and utterly feminine, the critical half of humanity often missing from surveys of the era.
When I see these kind of sculptures I’m often struck by the psychological processing seeming to have gone on as humanity came to terms with the fragmenting dehumanization of the previous decades. To see a female artist channel her own wounds through the zeitgeist of the times, especially one robbed of a chance at motherhood by men’s medieval violence before they moved on to savaging whole races, is especially illuminating and powerful.
Thank you, NYTimes, for highlighting the life and times of this woman, artist, and champion of humanity.
32