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Lecture, exiiibit at Holocaust Education Centre examine Nazi murder of disabled. ; Nazi policy on handicapped has resonance now.
PAT JOHNSON REPORTER
German doctors during the Third Reich were, not merely pawns" for the Nazis' evil medical experiments, but active pioneers on the • leading edge of macabre science. , ITiat was the message brought • to Vancouver'by brie' of the. world's leading experts in Nazi medical history..'. ,'\ ; .'
Dr. Robert Proctor,* distinguished professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, was here marking the opening of a new exhibit at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. The exhibit. Life Unworthy of Life: Nazi Euthanasia Crimes at Hadamar, looks at the involvement of tlie medical profession in carrying out the murders of thousands of German citizens and others who were deemed to be. mentally or physically deficient.' •.
Proctor noted that the sariie .•' medical staff who oversaw the euthanasia macliinery at the beginning of the Nazi era subsequently followed the machinery • when it was transferred from service against tlie disabled and put into action as part of the Final Solution, when tlie gassings were turned toward Jews and other targets of the Nazis.
The euthanasia campaign was part of a larger scheme, dubbed "racial hygiene," wliich called for the elimination of less-than-per-fect human specimens. The idea was not created by the Nazis, but was effectively absorbed by the National Socialists by the time they came to office in 1933. It was a perverse part of a larger "licalth" scheme, wliich was based on tlie Nazi philosophy of an "organic" state. The philosophy portrayed Germany and the German race as a single organism, headed by the "doctor" Adolf Hitler, and based on the idea that any part of the "body" that was unhealthy would have to be excised.
Tlie original concept of racial hygiene included Jews among the superior races, but that was unsubtly reversed when the Nazis usurped the policy.
Proctor pointed out that there has been an emotional debate over the past 50 years over what to do with the ill-gotten knowledge obtained from the Nazi era. That debate continues unabated, but Proctor added that there are some data that were discarded because of their taint with the Nazi monstrosities that we would have done well to utilize. For example, by the 1940s, the Nazis had discovered that asbestos was a cause of a particular strain of cancer, yet North Americans continued lo use it in
■■: ■ DR. SALLY M. ROGOW SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
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A propaganda poster states ttiat healthy Germans are carrying the weight of disabled people - to the tune of 50,000 relchsmarks over a 60-year lifespan. From the popular German racial journal, VolkundBasse (1935).
domestic and industrial settings into the 1970s. There were also aspects of the Nazi obsession with health that were surprisingly progressive, sucli as an emphasis on vegetarianism, use of soy beans and preventive care, such as regular colorectal exams and advertisements explaining to women how to perform a breast self-examination.
On the other side of this equation, there was a propaganda campaign - illustrated in its grotesque bluntness in the exhibit at the Holocaust centre -which put a very specific monetary cost on the care of disabled people. Posters with severely disfigured people were accompanied by stark actuarial accounts of how much the patient's care would cost the reicli over a lifetime. The victims, the exhibit notes, were not only con-gonitally or inwersibly disabled people, but also the elderly, deaf. and blind people, ill soldiers and people unable to work for whatever reason.
Proctor pointed out that the medical professionals who fulfilled tliese services to the Nazis were not coerced and, indeed, enthusiastically took tlie opportunity to "cleanse" the nation and to use victims to further science. An organization of Nazi doctors was formed and, before Hitler took power in 1933, had already been joined by six per cent of the entiix! medical profession. By the
height of the Nazi era, half the country's doctors belonged to the organization. By law, doctors were required to report patients who might be eligible for the euthanasia or sterilization campaigns. The Nazi medical organization's journal had a column devoted to anonymous letters asking whetlier a physician should report a patient with, say, a club foot, to the authorities. If euthanasia was not deemed necessary, forced sterilization was often selected instead.
After the war. Proctor said, the sterilization perpetrators were not classified as war criminals, because most Western countries were practising sterilization in some form or other. Proctor was an expert witness in the case of developnientally disabled Albertans who, during the same era, were forcibly sterilized at rates in excess, based on population, of those perpetrated by the Nazis.
The exhibit in the Holocaust ■ centre examines the beginnings and various peniiutations in the development of the euthanasia ' campaign and discusses the limited justice meted out to perpetrators after the war.
Proctor's lecture marked not only the opening of the new exhibit, but the first in a series of four lectures on various aspects of eugenics, medical ethics and genetic tcchnologj'. The exiiibit continues until June 7. □
The current exhibit at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre on the , killings that took place in ; Germany's leading psychiatric > hospitals during the Nazi era re-^ veals the tragic consequences of iisolating and refusing to ac-! knowlecige the humanity of peo-I pie with disabilities. » The gas chambers were first \ developed in psychiatric hospitals J and institutions for people with I mental illnesses or disabilities. It ! is a myth that only those with se-: vere disabilities were affected. Or-'»phans, children and young people j with behavior problems and those
• with minor disabilities were also ; institutionalized and thousands ! were murdered.
Whether acquired through ao-i cident or birth, people with dis-I abilities were tainted as "useless
• eatere," a "burden" on society and ; a threat to the health of the na-, tion. Propaganda films used dis-: torted images to portray people J with disabiUties. Regardless of ; cause, type or severity of disabil-s ity, it was considered an "hereditary illness." Nurses and attendants at the institutions ob- . served that many newly arriving cliildren spoke fluently and could read and write, but this did not prevent them from being described as 'hopeless cases." Chil-
; dren under five years of age were
: sent directly to state institutions.
! In 1939, a few daj-s after war was
' declared, Hitler issued the decree tliat gave physicians the author-
' ity to establish tlie killing wards. Tlie Nazi genocide of people with disabilities claimed more than a quarter of a million lives.
■ In 1941, the gas chambers were dismantled and reassembled at the deatli camps, but the killing of people with disabilities was driven into deeper secrecy and continued as wild euthanasia. Many of tlie same phj-sicians who administered the killing wards in psychiatric hospitals were transferred to the death camps. Heiuy Friedlander, a noted Holocaust scholar said that the brutal campaign to eliminate people wth disabilities from German society was tlie first chapter of the Holocaust. Disregard of the humanity of
' people with disabilities creates tlie conditions that make victims of defenceless and dependent people. Stereotj^ing, labeling, isolating and e.\cluding people with disabilities from mainstream society robs tliem of a sense of identity and a sense of belonging. Exclusion from mainstream society fosters social distancing and
encourages thinking about j)eo-ple with disabilities as "cases" to be treated rather than as human beings. When any group of pec^le are socially distanced, removed from society, labeled and stereotyped, thcor.axe madev^erable to a wide raxige of abtses.
The way sodjBt^}r yiem iodi-' viduals who have disabiUtiies is a measure of its humanity and; sense of community. Much progress has been made in educa> tion and treatment, but children and adults with disabilities are still labeled and mcD^einalized.
People with disabuiiies have the right to be seen as people with talents and abilities, able and willing to contribute to society. Invisible barriers exclude them firom participation in the lai^r community. Physical bar-. riers preclude attendance when. there is no wheelchair accessibility, information is difficult to access when there is no effort to: reach those who cannot read print or those who depend on sign language.
People with disabilities teach us to appreciate the courage and dignity of those who live with challenges and hardships. They teach us that there are different ways of experiencing the world. They show us that the human spirit need not be constrained by physical or mental limitations.
People with disabilities are finding their voice in the Jewish community. The advocates committee, a sub-committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, is seeking to open doors and enable participation. The Bagel Club, a social dub for adults with developmental and other disabilities meets regularly in the Jewish Community Centre. They arc also willing volunteers in community projects. Beth Israel launched a project— Opening Hearts, Minds and Doors - to facilitate participation in synagogue activities. The advocates are preparing materials for Jewish organizations to enable their participation. Efforts to accommodate children and young people witli disabilities in Jewish education have begun. There is still a long way to go.
Community awareness of the people witli disabilities who live among us is vital. It is only with tlie support of the entire Jewish community that real inclusion will become a reality.
Dr. Sally M. Rogow is a professor cmerita, Faculty of Education of the University' ofBritish Columbia.