University of Sydney Sydney, 30 January (interview) When Dominic Perrotet admitted he wore a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday party, he apologized to Jews and veterans, but disabled people He did not apologize to other groups persecuted by the Nazis, including
But disabled people were the first victims of the Holocaust. They were killed in many Nazi programs aimed specifically at them, as well as those aimed at Jews, Sinti and Roma.
In 2023, International Holocaust Remembrance Day will mark the 90th anniversary of the Nazis’ rise to power, and the Nazis will soon begin their persecution of anyone they consider “inferior.”
The Nazis often described the disabled as “useless eaters,” “empty human shells,” and “a life not worth living.” They chose these labels to evoke the image of people who can’t do anything, so they had to be kept in institutions for life, wasting taxpayers’ money for people without disabilities.
A series of policies implemented by the Nazis forced disabled people out of German society and into working institutions until they were killed.
Most disabled people lived in communities In Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, most disabled people lived in communities. In the mid-1920s, government surveys of persons with disabilities (the only surveys conducted at the time) found that few persons with disabilities lived permanently in institutions. In fact, very few people with disabilities live in institutions, often for education and rehabilitation when they were young.
For example, 17.5% of blind people lived in “schools for the blind”, whereas the majority of blind people (80.4%) were adults living in communities. And her third of those with the highest institutionalization rates were mentally or intellectually disabled and lived in the community.
A network of organizations controlled by and for disabled people prioritized obtaining and retaining employment. Some, such as the German Society for the Blind, founded in 1916, focused on specific occupations. Other associations, such as the Self-Help Federation of the Disabled, founded in 1919, created training and jobs for their members.In 1929, throughout Germany he had 6,000 members and Austria became a model for similar organizations in
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, this trajectory of increasing self-determination and community involvement of disabled people ended.
Exclusion and government hate campaigns One of the first legal changes to affect all Jews was to exclude them from the new marriage loan program. It was what I did. each child they had.
Given Germany’s unstable economy and high unemployment, this financial aid was significant, but only marriages “in the interest of the national community” were eligible. Both Jews and the disabled were also ineligible later that year when farms were made available to those who otherwise would not have an inheritance.
These laws were accompanied by a relentless government hate campaign. Schools, libraries, and waiting rooms had a series of posters, pamphlets, and magazines that reminded the “Aryans” of their superiority and the undesirability of all others.
Tours of facilities where people with disabilities have been put in powerless situations have become commonplace. These tours were a must for anyone planning to get married to discourage couples from moving on when their children might be ‘unfit’.
In this atmosphere, the Act on the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Disorders, enacted on July 14, 1933, which mandated the sterilization of disabled persons, met little opposition.
Films and traveling exhibitions were added to the hate campaign when it officially took effect on January 1, 1934. These stifled the rest of the opposition and made it impossible for victims of this law to maintain privacy about their personal circumstances.
Those who opposed sterilization were labeled unpatriotic. Those who did not contest sterilization were classified as inferior. Either way, sterilized women were targeted for rape. The only way to avoid sterilization was to throw yourself into institutions, a precursor to the increasing Nazi imprisonment of the disabled.
It became increasingly dangerous for people with disabilities to be seen in public, let alone work. In order to force them into institutions, they only had to target a few remaining avenues the Nazis had to stay in the community: marriage and education.
In 1935, one month after the ban on sexual contact and marriage between “Aryans” and Jews, it was also banned between “Aryans” and the disabled. In the same year, persons with disabilities were not allowed to attend post-primary school. And within two years he was not allowed to attend school at all unless they were part of an educational institution.
Actyon T4 and the Killing of the Disabled The Actyon T4 program targeted disabled adults in Germany and Austria and killed them in gas chambers attached to the institution. While this is the best-known program specifically for people with disabilities, it is not the first, nor the only one.
The killing of handicapped children began on July 25, 1939 and soon became part of designated hospital procedures in Germany and Austria. In September, the Nazis began killing patients in exile in Poland and other occupied countries.
The Aktion T4’s first victim was killed in October. The program had him allotted 70,000 victims. Once this quota was reached, most of Aktion T4’s staff was assigned to establish a ‘final solution’ and handicapped euthanasia was transferred to a hospital.
The disabled were also victims of every other Nazi extermination plan. Many disabled people were imprisoned in concentration camps and ghettos, whether they found ways to stay in their communities or were disabled because of Nazi violence or forced jobs. In Theresienstadt alone he deported 3,200 blind people.
These events are important to remember, not only as history, but as an example of how short the path from elimination to murder can be.(conversation) GRS
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