Deaf People and the Holocaust

1. Deaf People and the Holocaust

2. "It's a great misunderstanding to think that the Holocaust was only about murdering Jews. It was also about humiliation—about losing one's self-respect." - Deaf Holocaust survivor Transition Services Preparation & Training

3. 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. Transition Services Preparation & Training

4. 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. Transition Services Preparation & Training

5. 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. Transition Services Preparation & Training

6. 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. Transition Services Preparation & Training

7. 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. Transition Services Preparation & Training

8. The leader of the women’s section of REGEDE - although not hereditarily deaf - was voluntarily sterilized. She then toured Germany persuading others to follow her example. Transition Services Preparation & Training

9. It’s estimated that some 17,000 deaf people were sterilized between 1933 and 1945 – the youngest was 9 years old. Transition Services Preparation & Training

10. 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 Transition Services Preparation & Training

11. 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 routine—defective babies, incurably ill old people, mental patients were put to death. Transition Services Preparation & Training

12. 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 Transition Services Preparation & Training

13. "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 people—by 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 Transition Services Preparation & Training

14. For more information… • SeeHear: http://www.bbc.co.uk/seehear/extra/nazispecial/ • Deaf People & Holocaust: http://deafness.about.com/cs/featurearticles/a/holocaust.htm • Gallaudet Exhibit: http://deafness.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=deafness&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fclerccenter.gallaudet.edu%2Fworldaroundyou%2Fholocaust%2Fin-der-nacht.html • For teens: Deaf People Trapped in Hitler’s Holocaust: http://deafness.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=deafness&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fclerccenter.gallaudet.edu%2Fworldaroundyou%2Fholocaust%2Findex.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 Transition Services Preparation & Training