Where do Holocaust euthanasia practices fit into the modern euthanasia discussion?

Sierra Weiss is a senior majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Disability Studies and Bioethics. She was awarded a Spring 2017 Independent Grant which she used to conduct research under Dr. Rosemarie Garland-Thompson on the T4 program during the Holocaust.

Following my approval to conduct SIRE research this semester, I excitedly shared the news with my family and friends. The questions and interest quickly pursued regarding my research; I very casually mentioned the T4 Program during the Holocaust and implications on modern forms of eugenics. I assumed that most of the people I was talking to, many of whom are Jewish, would know exactly what I was talking about, however, to my great surprise, they never heard of the T4 program. Before embarking on my research at the beginning of the semester, it became clear to me how important this research is and, as I delved further into my topic, how little it is discussed.

Approximately 200,000 people or more with disabilities were murdered during the Holocaust. While there are hundreds of Holocaust memorials for Jewish victims of the Holocaust, there are few memorials for the lives with disabilities that were wrongly taken. Berlin hosts the most well-known memorial to the victims of the Holocaust who were murdered due to their disabilities, which was only conceived and erected in the past decade. The Nazi Euthanasia Program was conducted under the watch of Philip Bouhler and Dr. Karl Brandt and named the T4 Program after the location of its origin, Tiergartenstrasse 4, Berlin. Noted historians on the Holocaust, such as Henry Friedlander, believe that the amount of devastation the Nazis were able to carry out originated in the results of the T4 Program. If the results of the Holocaust were a direct consequence of the T4 Program, why isn’t it discussed more?

What I have found in my research so far has been a subtle correlation between modern forms of eugenics, like abortion and assisted suicide, in European countries that were directly involved in the Holocaust. While this is likely a result of the genocide that took place during the Holocaust as a whole, stricter laws in central Europe, like Germany, Belgium, France, and others make abortions very difficult to approve. A comparison between the steps that led to the mass murder of the Jews and abortion laws has shown an eerie similarity that has mostly been ignored in discussions of abortion. Taking this argument one step further, I have found through my research that a disturbing amount of the language used to justify modern abortion, describes fetuses in ways similar to how people with disabilities are often systematically dehumanized in modern culture. Language like sub-human and unworthy of life or life not worth living are often present in the rhetoric that surrounds disability.

While modern forms of eugenics are grounded in autonomy and allowing people to do what they want with their own bodies and lives, selective eugenics based on disability are noticeably reminiscent of Nazi genocide. People with disabilities were targeted initially because they weren’t granted autonomy and were already separated from society by being placed in hospitals and asylums. While human rights have come a long way to protect people with disabilities against discrimination through the Americans with Disabilities Act and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, among others, people with disabilities are still systematically killed on the basis of disability. It is difficult to draw a line between modern eugenics based on autonomy versus to avoid disability. This prominent issue is one that I have been struggling with in the final stages of my research.

On Wednesday, I am traveling to Washington D.C. to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. During my visit, I plan to research in the extensive archives available at the Museum and visit other museums in the area pertaining to disability history. I think that access to the documents available in the archives will allow me to understand the topics I have been researching over the past months in greater depth and will, potentially, help me clarify some of the complicated issues I have faced. I look forward to learning in a more hands-on environment and surrounded by experts as well as artifacts that will strengthen my knowledge of this topic.

As I prepare for my visit to D.C., I have been reflecting on the emotional toll of my research. While I have been able to mostly conduct my research from a very academic perspective, I predict that exposure to the artifacts, photos, and clips that I will see at the museums in D.C. will bring my research to life. As the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, the Holocaust and the atrocities that occurred have always been deeply troubling to me, but I have become desensitized to reading about the mass murders and plans for extermination. Entering the final stages of my research, I hope to regain an emotional attachment to this subject. My ancestors were persecuted for being Jewish and I have spent years studying their history and sharing their stories. It is time for the victims of the Holocaust who were murdered because of their disabilities to have their stories told as well. 

Visit the Undergraduate Research Programs website to learn more about applying for Independent Research Grants.