This shattering note, in which a mental patient alludes to herself as being confined in a Nazi concentration camp, was recovered from the estate of a doctor who practiced at Willard Psychiatric Hospital, in Willard, NY. In its half-coherent, broken language, it poignantly expresses the crushing, all-pervasive hopelessness and regret of a mental health inmate confronting her mortality:
“Dear Jesus,I am sorry I cannot help you. I tried to spread my grace because of the Britian Prophescy and the German Prophescy Due to cutterage of the Head, Heart, stomach and Reproductive Organs. I am no longer going to be living. I tried as a prophet and person. I don’t even want to be an animal. For what a person does to an animal. I wish to stay in my grave. And not rise again from the Grave.
I have seen too much to life. Now I am blind and deaf. And have lost my feeling too.
I am not Jewish but was put in a Nazi Concentration Camp. And haven’t been released. And I have sinned too. But the Master-Mind won’t let me forget it.
And I have losted my Christianity because of herorhim. – Master Mind
I have been married several times and lost every child. I am sad for my family and me.
I appreciate what you have done for me. I don’t ask for much. I earn my own. And give to the poor and church.
Thank you Lord.
I was a soldier.Thank You.“
