Psychiatry and Psychiatric Patients in Italy During World War II.

Italian psychiatry and psychiatric asylums were markedly affected by fascism, World War II, and civil war. Since the nineteenth century (and this remained true under fascism), Italian psychiatry rejected the idea of exterminating the unproductive mentally ill. Only some German-naturalized patients at the border zones near Austria fell victim to German extermination programs. Since the nineteenth century, however, Italian psychiatry can be held responsible for racism against people of color and, beginning in 1938, against Jews. Jewish psychiatrists were persecuted, and some Jewish patients were removed from the asylums of northern Italy, particularly Trieste and Venice, deported, and killed. Data exist on what happened to psychiatric patients during the war in many Italian asylums, and they are summarized in this paper. The war damaged many asylums and around 300 patients and staff members died as a result of bombing, but, above all, approximately 24,000 to 30,000 additional patients, in comparison with the mean of other years, died in the asylums from hunger and lack of care. This was particularly the case in southern Italy between 1942 and 1945. It does not appear that this was a result of a deliberate intent to exterminate patients but, rather, due to inexcusable disorganization and lack of care. This was evident to psychiatrists at the time of its occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]