Tag: silence

Disability History, Part 3

Aktion T4 and the Holocaust

Today’s post is near and dear to my heart. It is a great example of the disabled community being silenced as almost no one has been taught about the Aktion T4 program. The T4 program was a political mass murder campaign by involuntary euthanasia, which ended up serving as the precursor to the Holocaust. The history that I’ve compiled for this week is, and should be, shocking. As such, I feel that I need to put a warning here that this post will talk about some of the horrendous things that occurred before and during WWII which include: mass murder, eugenics, abortion, forced sterilization, assisted suicide, and the torture of children. I encourage readers to decide for themselves if they would like to engage in this material.

The early 1900s was a dark time for those with disabilities. In addition to facing discrimination in employment, education, architecture, it was also the age of eugenics. This meant that scientists and politicians were trying to shape the human race by eliminating undesirable characteristics. Those with disabilities were especially targeted. In America, new laws passed such as the “ugly laws” which prohibited the appearance of people who were “diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object (1).” Another example is sterilization laws, which allowed disabled people to be sterilized against their consent. America was not the only country to do this. Sterilization laws were also in effect all over Europe. In the Deaf community, oralism (communicating by voice rather than by sign language) was enforced. Deaf teachers were fired while deaf students were punished if they signed. American Sign Language was nearly wiped out of existence. Alexander Graham Bell, largely known for creating the first telephone, used his fame to push for laws that would prohibit Deaf people from marrying or having children.

The purpose behind these laws was to further segregate disabled people from non-disabled people. In addition, they pushed disabled people to fit into the status quo. This discrimination and segregation—particularly the sterilization laws—inspired scientists and political leaders in Germany, who were also heavily discussing Darwin’s ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest.

In support of these ideas, the Nazi party began producing propaganda that blamed Germany’s social and economic problems on people with disabilities. Anyone who didn’t contribute to the well-being of the society was considered a burden to the point they were called “lives unworthy of living (2).” After the propaganda, came action.

In 1933 the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring” was passed and lead to forced sterilization of people carrying hereditary defects, which was anything from mental illness to deformations to sensory disabilities such as deafness or blindness to biracial children. Many who were sterilized were children, who often did not know what the operation meant until years later. You can hear a few of these victims tell the story in their own words here.

After this, more action came with the registration of disabilities. Political leaders wanted to know how many people with disabilities were in nursing homes, being born in hospitals, and living at home. It became required for doctors, midwives, and nurses to report this information. Once that information was gathered, Aktion Tiergartenstrasse 4 (T4) began. In a nutshell, the T4 program was a campaign of mass murder of people with disabilities. It began in 1939 with the quiet killing of infants and children under the age of 3 who were suspected of having a hereditary disability. Parents did not have a say in their child’s future. If they fought the decision of the doctors, their baby was taken away.

When WWII broke out, T4 expanded to older children, adults, and the elderly with disabilities. Disabled people were being trafficked to special “institutions” and “special sections” where it was believed that they would receive better treatment. In reality, they were being sent to various places to be slaughtered. These were the first instances of mass murder in Germany and, of course, needed to be undertaken secretly. This meant there was a need to develop new technology to kill several people at a time and provide a way to efficiently dispose of the bodies. That’s how gas chambers were invented and why furnaces became the top method of disposing of bodies.

The Nazi party kept T4 secret. Most parents who dropped their children or family members off at these institutions didn’t know they were delivering them to the arms of death. While most adults had the mercy of being killed quickly, for children it was a different story. Children were often locked in rooms and either starved or beaten until dead. Those with mental illnesses were sometimes kept for experiments. One particular doctor, Heinrich Gross, would preserve the brains of disabled children in jars for further studies. He is credited with killing more children than any other doctor under the T4 program and has never been formally charged for these crimes.

I am sad to say that Gross’s victims were not laid to rest until April 28, 2002. Gross kept their brains as part of his collection of study and research, continuing to dissect their brains as late as 1998. (3)

After the success of the T4 program, the Nazi party turned to target Jews, Blacks, Transgender, Homosexuals, interracial couples, and many others. With the new technology developed under the T4 program, they had the means to do mass exterminations the likes of which had never been seen before.

T4 continued through the war until Germany surrendered to Allied powers on May 7, 1945. The last murder of the program took place on May 29, 1945. It was a boy named Richard Jeene who was four years old and classified as a “feebleminded idiot” (4). While the exact number of people who were killed under T4 isn’t known, estimations range from 200,000 to 360,000 (5).

Had the T4 program been prevented or failed, it is likely the Holocaust would never have come to past. From this history, we can see how when one group successfully justifies the extermination or discrimination of another group, there will always be another group to target. Because the disabled community is one of the most invisible and oppressed minorities on the planet, it is not uncommon for them to be the first target.

Unfortunately, discussions about disabilities and eugenics continue to this day. As an example, many believe that disabilities need to be cured or eradicated. Abortion laws around the world often allow fetuses who have been diagnosed with disabilities to be terminated at much later dates than allowed for a non-disabled fetus. This assumes that children with disabilities will have a lower quality of life or be too much of a burden. Another example, some groups are pushing for assisted suicide for disabled people, which would allow someone with a disability to legally seek out voluntary euthanasia. This arises from assumptions that people with disabilities are so miserable that they want to die. This particular issue strikes a personal nerve because I spent most of my childhood wishing I was dead. And then I grew up and I learned about disabilities and the barriers in place that made me feel that way. I developed pride in myself and my disability. I overcome those feelings and now I can’t imagine wanting to die. Assisted suicide is not an answer until we first break down the barriers that prevent disabled people from being fully integrated into society.

Woman walking along the Berlin Wall

A third example is found in efforts of trying to cure disabilities similarly has a mindset that disability makes a person less useful. Whereas focusing on accessibility and building better technology for disabled people focuses on breaking down barriers. If disabilities are completely eradicated we stand to lose so much diversity and innovation. Instead of assuming that disabilities need to be wiped out or that they are a burden, maybe society should look at the barriers that keep people with disabilities from contributing. Instead of saying “people with disabilities are burdens” try saying “what barriers prevent people with disabilities from contributing to society? How can we challenge or remove these barriers?”

One of the reasons I started this blog was to combat the persistent negative views surrounding disabilities. Disabled people are often seen for their disability rather than as people, but we are people first, foremost, and forever. As a nation and as a global village, we are entering into a new age. As I’ve mentioned before, I am part of the first generation of the disabled community, worldwide, to grow up with civil rights. This means that disabled people are no longer segregated from non-disabled people and we are in the process of becoming a more visible community. Perhaps a better way to explain this is with a quote from Judy Heumann’s book.

“We were a people who were generally invisible in the daily life of society. I mean, think about it. If you didn’t see us in school, because we weren’t allowed in; or in your place of employment, either because we couldn’t physically access it or because we couldn’t get hired; or on your form of public transportation, because buses and trains weren’t accessible; or in restaurants or theaters, for the same reason—then where in your everyday life would you have seen us?”

Being Heumann, Page 103

When I first learned about the T4 program a couple of years ago, I felt like I had been betrayed. Why hadn’t I been taught this in school? Why wasn’t everyone taught about it? We learn about the Holocaust in detail, but nothing about how it came to be. It seemed like such an important detail to leave out. Isn’t that why we learn history? So we recognize the signs if it starts happening again? The T4 program assumed that life can be measured by usefulness while further assuming only able-bodied persons were useful, a stereotype that persists today. I have to wonder if disabilities and eugenics would still be under discussion if more people were educated about T4. Things like selective abortion are not too far off of the beginnings of the T4 program. It is discrimination. It is a matter of life and death. It is important to understand and recognize these things before they escalate into something bigger. Something more terrible.

Something that should never be silenced.

References

  1. Schweik, Susan M, and Robert A Wilson. “Ugly Laws.” The Eugenics Archives, 5 Feb. 2015, eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/tree/54d39e27f8a0ea4706000009.
  2. Cook, Ian. “The Holocaust and Disabled People: FAQ – Frequently-Asked Questions.” Ouch!, BBC, 17 Oct. 2008, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/fact/the_holocaust_and_disabled_people_faq_frequently_asked_questions.shtml.
  3. Erlanger, Steven. “Vienna Buries Child Victims Of the Nazis.” The New York Times, 29 Apr. 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/29/world/vienna-buries-child-victims-of-the-nazis.html.
  4. Krausz, Tibor. “You Were Born to Die for Germany.” Tibor Krausz, The Jerusalem Report, 28 Nov. 2005, tiborkrausz.com/html/book_review/You_were_born_to_die_for_germany.html.tiborkrausz.com/html/book_review/You_were_born_to_die_for_germany.html.
  5. Berenbaum, Michael. “T4 Program.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 21 Feb. 2001, http://www.britannica.com/event/T4-Program.

Disability History, Part 1

Understanding the word “Disability” and where it comes from

Historical silencing is a term that refers to the dominating narratives that reinforce the power of dominant groups in a way that the contributions of lower-powered groups are ignored and silenced. As the common saying goes, “history is written by the victors.” Historical silencing shows up in ways like how most Americans can name Christopher Columbus as the man who “discovered” the Americas, but they cannot name the tribes of people who were here first. Another example of historical silencing exists in how the contributions of women have been ignored for centuries and have only recently begun to come to light. There is perhaps no group that has experienced more historical silencing than the disabled community.

Disability history may not seem like an important subject to study, but the truth is that the concept of disabilities has shaped the world in more ways than it is possible to name. For example, disability drives human invention. The first telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell as a stepping stone in trying to create a hearing aid. Texting was engineered for deaf people but quickly became popular among everyone. But disability has also inspired wars. Like in the case of Adolf Hitler, who killed more than 275,000 people with disabilities in 1939. It was this act that allowed him to expand his agenda to the murder of millions of Jews.

But the most important point about understanding disability history is that it ties into the history of so many other forms of discrimination. Ableism, the discrimination based on ability, is the root of sexism, genderism, ageism, and racism. I talked about this idea a little in Defining Disabilities, Part 1. Women were once considered physically and mentally inferior to men. Similarly, people of color were seen as intellectually disabled but physically superior. This allowed slavers to say that slavery was a kindness by providing work, shelter, and food for the “savages.” While a lot of progress has been made, there are still people who believe these groups are mentally or physically inferior. In other words, these groups are seen as disabled because of certain factors such as skin color or body type. If we, as a nation, wish to progress past discrimination based on race, religion, gender, and age, we must first overcome discrimination based on ability.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t know much about disability history. Three years ago, I didn’t know it was even a thing until after I took a critical literary studies class which introduced me to disability studies. From there I slowly began to learn more and more disabilities. I started learning about the Disability Rights Movement for the first time. I read about the protests. I read about the people who had come before me and fought for me to have the life I have today. It’s been a very personal and emotional journey in discovering my heritage. This is a classic case of historical silencing because there are so few that know this subject and there is no telling how much history is missing. While I may know but a scratch on the surface, I know more than the average person and I’m continuing to learn each day.

The beginning of disability history begins with a single word, both literally and metaphorically. As language is a reflection of the values and perspective within culture, understanding the origins of “disability” provides insight on when the divide between “us” and “them” begins. The word came about in the 1570s, literally meaning “incapacity in the eyes of the law.” The 1500s was also a time of exploration when European countries were establishing colonies around the world. It was no coincidence that “disability” arose from this period.

To give some background on this area, colonialism brought forth a new age as cultures and people were able to interact in ways that were previously impossible. There was a new need to study other cultures and to understand them in order to build trade relations and communicate. That’s when the science of anthropology began. Today anthropology is a important field of study, but it had dark origins.

Colonialism, in a nutshell, was about exploiting other people, their land, and their resources. Anthropology was used to justify taking over these lands. For example, the leading anthropological theory of this period was unilinear cultural evolution, or that all societies and cultures develop on the same pathway. This path had a series of stages from “savagery” to “barbarianism” and finally, to “civilized.” Of course, the Europeans thought of themselves as being at the top of the scale. Using anthropology, they rationalized that they were doing a service by conquering other people. As the highest evolved form of humanity, God wanted the Europeans to take advantage of these opportunities or so they believed. Victims of colonialism were forced to destroy their lands to grow cash crops and enact European customs and ideals. This is how people started being classified based on their skin, abilities, and way of life.

Outside of the European expansion, finding a language with a word that meant “disability” is rare. This does not mean other cultures didn’t have persons with disabilities, but rather that these cultures acknowledged the differences and accepted them without a second thought. For example, Native American tribes did not have a word meaning “disability.” Part of their beliefs centers on the idea that each individual was born to fulfill a specific purpose. So if a child was born with a mental or physical disability, but found they were an excellent water carrier, then that is what the Gods meant for them to do. The child was not seen or labeled as disabled.

This example is from A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielson. Books on disability history are rare and I was fortunate enough to read this while taking a class on anthropological theories. This book has taught me more about disability history than any other source to date. It shows how much of history has been shaped by disabilities but has been silenced.

Understanding the origin of the word “disability” and that it is not, in fact, a common term we can conclude that it was used to classify people in order to establish a hierarchy. In the coming weeks, I will be talking about different events and impacts that disabilities have had in the past and continue to impact us today. I will also talk about events that I have been lucky enough to witness within my lifetime.

Historical silencing is alarming, appalling, and daunting. In the midst of silence, people don’t know what or how much is missing or lost. It is my hope that this blog series will help shine a light for teachers on how important disability history is to include in the classroom and to help writers learn more about what sort of circumstances cause disability, how it impacts society, and provide further insight into the disabled identity.

Did you enjoy this blog post? If so, leave a like or comment below! In addition, if there is a topic you would like to see covered in a future blog post, you can send me a message on the contact page.