Deaf People and the Holocaust

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Deaf People and the Holocaust

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• "It's a great misunderstanding to think that the
  Holocaust was only about murdering Jews. It was
  also about humiliationabout losing one's
  self-respect."

- Deaf Holocaust survivor
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• The Nazis targeted three major groups for
  persecution Gypsies, Jews, and people with
  disabilities, all based on the belief that all of
  these groups were biologically inferior.

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• The Nazis believed that some people are better
  than other people. They believed that the best
  people were "Aryan" Germans they believed that
  other people should serve, be killed, or made
  slaves.

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• The Nazi party created an organization called
  REGEDE - the Reich Union of the Deaf in Germany.
  Many German deaf newspapers and social groups
  were abolished.

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• REGEDE was led by the Deaf Nazi Fritz Albreghs,
  the 'Fuhrer of the Deaf'. He used both sign and
  speech to get across the Nazi message.

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• In July 1933, the Nazi regime introduced a
  controversial new law to prevent the unfit from
  having children by enforced sterilization of
  certain defined groups, including the deaf and
  disabled.

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• The leader of the womens section of REGEDE -
  although not hereditarily deaf - was voluntarily
  sterilized. She then toured Germany persuading
  others to follow her example.

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• Its estimated that some 17,000 deaf people were
  sterilized between 1933 and 1945 the youngest
  was 9 years old.

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• Doctors terminated pregnancies by force if an
  inherited genetic condition, such as deafness,
  was suspected. Children with mental and physical
  disabilities were killed by lethal injection or
  starvation.

My Family History By David Bloch
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• As the war continued, Germany moved from
  sterilization to euthanasia, primarily for
  economic reasons. By 1941, euthanasia was a part
  of almost every hospital's routinedefective
  babies, incurably ill old people, mental patients
  were put to death.

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• By 1940, sterilization was replaced by murder
  the Nazis called it "mercy killing. About 150,000
  handicapped people- and 1600 deaf people were
  killed by the Nazis

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• "We need to learn more about the disappearance of
  deaf Jews and deaf Gypsies. We need to know more
  about what difference in treatment occurred
  between genetically deaf and late deafened
  peopleby people who were oral vs. people who
  signed. We need to know more about deaf people in
  other countries. And we need to know more about
  how deaf people coped and survived."
• - Peter Black, senior historian, United States
  Holocaust Memorial Museum

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For more information

• SeeHear http//www.bbc.co.uk/seehear/extra/nazisp
  ecial/
• Deaf People Holocaust http//deafness.about.com
  /cs/featurearticles/a/holocaust.htm
• Gallaudet Exhibit http//deafness.about.com/gi/dy
  namic/offsite.htm?zi1/XJsdndeafnesszuhttp3A
  2F2Fclerccenter.gallaudet.edu2Fworldaroundyou2F
  holocaust2Fin-der-nacht.html
• For teens Deaf People Trapped in Hitlers
  Holocaust http//deafness.about.com/gi/dynamic/of
  fsite.htm?zi1/XJsdndeafnesszuhttp3A2F2Fcle
  rccenter.gallaudet.edu2Fworldaroundyou2Fholocaus
  t2Findex.html
• Books to read
• Crying Hands Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi
  Germanyby Horst Biesold, 2002, Gallaudet
  University Press, Washington DC
• Deaf People in Hitler's EuropeDonna Ryan John
  S. Schuchman, 2002, GU Press