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On December 7th 2001, a stone's throw away from Times Square and the glittery movie houses that show blockbusters that go to great lengths to entertain, there played a film at Fountain House of a very different sort. The New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (NYAPRS) sponsored the presentation of Patricia Deegan's "The Politics of Memory." Some 150 persons crowded into the beautiful cafeteria there to view this 40-minute expose of 400 years of the maltreatment of persons with mental illness.

In a tone that blends gravity and melancholy, with sardonic humor, Ms. Deegan argues that the truth about such treatment has been co-opted, that misinformation abounds; that the "policing function of the politics of memory" has shaped public opinion the wrong way, to the disadvantage of the sufferers. Just as Christopher Columbus has been touted as the discoverer of America, as if native islanders like the Arawak were not extant upon his arrival, so the history of the so-called insane has been controlled to squelch the voices of madness.

Yet madness speaks. Ms. Deegan has uncovered archives and artifacts of psychiatric patients who have endeavored to tell their story: letters written to family members that never reached their destination, having been intercepted by their so-called care-givers; sculpted artwork that reveals the depth of a demented mind. Some educated individuals were able to chronicle their suffering by self-publishing. The tales and evidence include electronic listening devices, fetters, instruments of torture and Nazi concentration camps. In 1941 alone, 8,601 persons with mental illness died in the gas chambers.

This grim history is shared by all peoples: Native American political prisoners, like Geronimo, were committed to asylums while African-Americans, in Southern institutions, were segregated and abused. There, it was easier to treat them as animals, objects of experimentation, recipients of humiliation.

In the early twentieth century, a movement called eugenics formed among scientists and other intellectuals to promote mandatory sterilization laws to "keep the life stream pure." Those with mental illness were not to procreate for fear of ruining the race, of damaging the stock. This movement fueled the Hitlerian policies that produced the common death pits of the War, terminating the lives of those with perceived mental, physical and ethnic imperfections. The march to purity commenced even after Charles Darwin had penned this: "Diversity in the gene pool creates strength and survivability in any species." Ms. Deegan asks in her narrative, "Will the world be a better place without people with disabilities?" The question hovers for us to answer.

The film itself suffers from technical imperfections. A hissing sound can be heard behind Ms. Deegan's voice. The sound stops suddenly, giving the impression, several times, that all is over. But it returns with her voice, and the narration continues. The glitch is a distraction during an otherwise compelling viewing experience. Mr. Terry Strecker, the producer who accompanied the film to Fountain House, explained that he is laboring to correct this problem before it is more widely distributed. Indeed, the film, in my opinion, should be disseminated. It tells a story heretofore untold, and admonishes the viewer, those who suffer in the same manner, to imitate the men and women who, against long odds, fought to communicate their plight in opposition to the "master narrative," the version that is not ours. "Dare to speak our truth," is her imperative, "we must support each other."

The language Ms. Deegan uses makes this documentary a companion of the consumer movement. Repeatedly, she calls the viewers "leaders," bestowing upon each of us the responsibility to take action for each other and ourselves. Her words conform to the values we have come to cherish: self-help, peer support, recovery, rehabilitation and independent living. Those few persons present on December 7th who thought the film one-sided and too negative failed to recognize, I think, the narrator's intention to set the record straight, to tip the balance to equilibrium. Her admonishments mean the story is not over. We "yearn for freedom." We are going somewhere; we are on our way.

Elie Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor who also has been devoted to memory. He labels himself a "witness," and writes to preserve, to honor and protect the memory of lost lives. The Nobel Prize winner once wrote, "… the story… needed to be told for the sake of our children. So they will know where they come from, and what their heritage is." Persons with psychiatric disabilities have a heritage, too. At times, as we have seen, it is the same heritage as that of the Jews. Ms. Deegan joins Mr. Wiesel in this mission, it seems, and we should follow suit. Her narration and his writings read like poetry, like a song of sadness, a common lament of rejected people. It is a universal cry of anguish.

But we can move forward, I believe, confident that there is "…a time for wailing and a time for dancing…."