“What began as the first industrial mass murder of the Nazis in the six killing centers in psychiatric clinics and nursing homes - Brandenburg/Havel, Bernburg, Hartheim/Linz, Pirna-Sonnenstein, Grafeneck, and Hadamar - found its personal, conceptual, and institutional continuation and expansion on the extermination camps in the East.”
Hechler, Andreas. (2017). “Diagnoses That Matter: My Great Grandmother’s Murder as One Deemed ‘Unworthy of Living’ and its Impact on our Family”, Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 2. https://dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/5573/4651.
What makes the study and acknowledgment of Aktion T4 and the subsequent secret euthanasia programs so very important is their link to the deaths of six million Jews that followed. The link between the killings of persons with disabilities and the killing of Jewish people in Hitler’s Germany is an important and often overlooked connection between the two in history. P. Weindling wrote in "Jeder Mensch hat einen Namen", “Aktion T4...is recognized as crucial in the genesis of the carbon monoxide gas chambers of the ‘Final Solution’”.
“Here [Aktion T4] we have the first evidence of gassing of human beings. How else do you figure out how to build efficient gas chambers? Trial and error, of course. Engineers who go on to build Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec…and start the mobile van gas chambers at Chelmno, all get ideas here.”
Rozell, Matthew A. (2016). A Train Near Magdeburg: A Teacher’s Journey Into the Holocaust and the Reuniting of the Survivors and Liberators, 70 Years On. Woodchuck Hollow Press, page 87.
Neither Holocaust nor Genocide
The persons killed in the Krankenmorde are not included in the definition of the Holocaust. We, the authors, understand some Judaic Studies scholars and Holocaust organizations view any inclusion of non-Jews in the definition of “The Holocaust” as an affront to the memory of the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust and, also, as a type of ‘soft denial’ of the Holocaust itself. Neither is our intent with this book.
“The idea that the Krankenmorde was both a precondition and preliminary step to the Nazi’s Final Solution’ became an integral part in the history of the Holocaust…This connection between those two crimes begs the question, were the victims of the Krankenmorde also victims of the Holocaust?”
Robertson, Michael, Astrid Ley, and Edwina Light. (2019). The First Into The Dark: The Nazi Persecution of the Disabled. UTS ePRESS, Australia, page 156.
Holocaust researcher and author Susanne Knittel wrote, “The Nazi euthanasia was no mere preface to the Holocaust but rather its first chapter.”
The elimination of over 300,000 persons with disabilities must certainly be acknowledged as at least a precursor to the Holocaust. The quote we’ve found that most accurately describes Aktion T4 vis-à-vis the Holocaust in our opinion is Matthew Rozell’s description:
"By definition, the T-4 euthanasia program is not the Holocaust, but it is concurrent and intersects.”
Krankenmorde victims are also not included in a definition of a genocide event:
"As the UN’s construct of genocide does not acknowledge ‘disability’ or ‘illness’ as a defining characteristic of a targeted group, the Krankenmorde does not prima facie meet current international criteria for a genocide.”
Upwards of 300,000 souls have not been included in any body count, their names have been purposely hidden from history, their stories not researched, and they have almost been lost to human memory.
Through the telling of Ruth’s story, I tell of the attempt by National Socialism to rid society of all the persons they considered to be “useless eaters” and “ballast”. Term it what you will, victims of National Socialists and/or prelude to the Holocaust, these people have been hidden long enough and they deserve to be known and remembered.
Let us remember all the victims of National Socialism. Let us acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of persons with disabilities that were killed as part of Hitler’s plan for the Third Reich. To acknowledge them is to remember their existence.
You were not useless eaters.
You are not forgotten.
Every human being that is born is worthy of existing.
You were loved.
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