Nazi Persecution: On Disabled

By: Timmy Stephen

“Euthanasia” Program

• eu·tha·na·sia [yoo-thuh-ney-zhuh] -n.   The act or practice of ending the life of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable condition

“painless death”

• In 1939, Adolf Hitler initiated a decree which empowered physicians to grant a "mercy death" to "patients considered incurable

• The intent of this program was NOT to relieve the suffering of the program BUT to exterminated the mentally ill and handicapped, “cleansing the Aryan race”

• In the beginning, patients were killed by lethal injections

• Then carbon monoxide gas became the preferred method of killing. This led to the creation of the first gas chambers.

• Hitler's regime continued to send to physicians and the general public the message that mental patients were "useless eaters" and life unworthy of life

• Doctors were encouraged to decide on their own who should live or die, Killing became part of hospital routine as patients were put to death by:– Starvation– Poisoning– injections

Buses used to transport patients to Hadamar euthanasia center. The windows were painted to prevent people from seeing those inside. Germany, between May and September 1941.

• Thousands of mental patients were killed in Poland, Russia, and East Prussia by SS and other special police units from the invading Germany

Statistics• In October 1939, these SS police units shot about

3,700 mental patients in asylums in Poland

In December of that year and January of the following, 1,558 patients from Polish asylums

were gassed in gas vans by the SS.

• In all, between 200,000 and 250,000 mentally and physically handicapped persons were murdered from 1939 to 1945 under the “Euthanasia” programs. • Killings even

continued in some of Germany's mental asylums weeks after Allied troops had occupied surrounding areas.

• Records discovered after the war documented 70,273 deaths by gassing at the six "euthanasia" centers between January 1940 and August 1941

• All Jewish mental patients were killed regardless of their ability to work or the seriousness of their illness.

DID ANYONE DO ANYTHING TO STOP THE

KILLINGS?

• Yes, there were some people who tried to stop “euthanasia” programs.A handful of church leaders, local judges, physicians, and parents of victims protested

• One psychiatrist and his son, a Protestant minister urged church groups to pressure church-run institutions not to

release their disabled patients to the authorities