The Handicapped and Disabled

"Never have so many lives been extinguished in so short a time, and with so lucid a combination of technological ingenuity, fanaticism, and cruelty."

~ concentration camp survivor Primo Levi 

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In 1933, Nazi law continued its quest for a biologically perfect Aryan society by establishing the Law to Prevent Offspring with Hereditary Defects. This authorized the sterilization of the handicapped in order to prevent a physical and mental weakening of the German Race. As a result, approximately 360,000 Germans were sterilized. As the Hitler's ideas advanced, in 1939 Nazi law enacted a program of euthanasia, which mandated murder of any person deemed "unworthy to live." This description came to include those who were physically or mentally disabled, alcoholic, epileptic, suffering with tuberculosis or cancer, and German Mulatto children.

Nazi doctor with handicapped    Five handicapped Jewish prisoners in Buchenwald

"patient"                                    Courtesy of USHMM

Courtesy of USHMM

This mandate of murder was called T-4, because its headquarters was located at Tiergarten 4, Berlin. It was disguised as a wartime measure when Hitler signed the law in October, but pre-dated it to September 1, 1939. The Nazi Physicians who enacted T-4 operated through a network of "hospitals, schools, asylums, health departments, registry offices, universities, research centers, and private homes." T-4 raised controversy and protest within Germany, and in August 1941, Hitler ended the program of euthanasia. By that time, approximately 200,000 people had been euthanized, accomplishing what T-4 had set out to accomplish- a mass murder of non-Aryans. After this, personnel and equipment used in T-4 was simply transferred to the concentration camps for use there (Australian Memories of the Holocaust). 

For more photographs, see the USHMM Homepage. At the very top of the screen, there is a search engine. Scroll down the search menu and select "Photographs." Type in the search "Handicapped."

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