Word: geel
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...read your article about Geel and its mental asylum [March 14] with great interest. I was in custody of the asylum at the age of two in 1938 and placed with a foster family in Geel. When Germany overran Belgium, I was forced to hide. A few months later, my younger sister joined the same household. Though the whole town knew of our Jewish origin, we lived through the entire war years without any harm, at the constant risk of many peo ple's lives. Never again have I known such love and care...
When I read of all the inhumanity that exists today, I need the knowledge of Geel and its compassionate citizens to restore my faith in mankind...
...Your story recalls an incident that occurred during my visit there eight years ago. Late one afternoon, I saw a poster announcing that the film to be shown that night was Psycho-Alfred Hitchcock's shockingly violent story of a maniacal killer. I envisioned the awful effects on Geel's paranoids and schizophrenics who dutifully attended the weekly shows...
...doctor visits each patient monthly, a nurse every other week. Though the program is geared to the long-term patient, about half of the patients newly placed in foster homes are able to go home after about 16 months. Those who remain in Geel, some for as long as 50 years, may make little if any progress, but at least they are exposed to normal human conversation and society and have the simple dignity of honest work. Patients are treated like members of their foster families, eating with them, sleeping in their own rooms, helping with household and farm chores...
Gentle Rhythm. Patience, understanding and the gentle rhythm of life have been almost the only real treatment at Geel. Now Matheussen is planning to set up several neighborhood treatment centers where patients will meet regularly for group therapy, schooling and vocational training. This additional therapy may be crucial to Geel's survival because modern life is at last changing the town's stable, close-knit medieval patterns. Factory jobs are replacing the farm work that is suitable for many patients. Trucks and cars thunder through the square, their drivers not accustomed to watching for dazed people who forget...