N*zi Germany & k*lling Autistic children | Autism PDD
You guys, I found this portion of Dr. Valerie Paradiz's book "Elijah's Cup" extremely moving. It is discussing the time when Kanner & Asperger were studying/discovering Autism & Asperger syndrome. I will never think of the Holocaust without remembering those poor Autistic & Aspie children who were systematically "exterminated". I bolded the writings of Kanner because they had an especially significant impact on me this morning. -Hope
During the early years of their careers, widespread belief in the sterilization of the disabled, as a way of elevating the human race and protecting the gene pool from contamination, was present not only in fascist Germany and Austria, but in the United States as well. Medical leaders of these nations wanted to correct social problems by scientifically halting the growth in population of those who were perceived as "unfit". In fascist Germany, the eugenics program was taken to nightmarish extremes. Not only were the disabled sterilized against their will, but they served, as early as 1940, as a kind of pilot program for what would become the N*zi death camps for Jews, gypsies, intellectuals, gays, and lesbians in the years that followed. Holocaust historian Henry Friedlander writes:
"The euthanasia killings-that is the 'systematic and secret execution' of the handicapped- were N*zi Germany's first organized mass murder, in which the killers developed their killing technique. 
They created the methods for selecting the victims. They invented techniques to gas people and burn their bodies. They employed subterfuge to hide the killings, and they did not hesitate to pillage the corpses ...The killings who learned their trade in the euthanasia killing centers of Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hartheim, Sonnestein, Bernburg, and Hadamar also staffed the killing centers at Belzer, Sobibor, and Treblinka."
The eugenics campaigns of Germany and the United States were simliar in some respects. Both countries wanted to shape forcefully a society of economically useful individuals, while decreasing the fiscal burden of institutionalization, incarceration, and charity. 
[In the United Sates, public opinion against eugenics was more vocal than in Germany. Dr. Leo Kanner was incensed by such campaigns. Targeting Hitler, here referred to as Schicklgruber, Kanner writes:
"Let us try to recall one single instance in the history of mankind when a feeble minded individual or group of individuals was responsible for the extermination or persecution of humaneness in science. Those who caused Galileo to be jailed were not feeble minded. Those who instituted the Inquisition were not mental defectives. The great man-made catastrophes resulting in wholesale slaughter and destruction were not started by idiots, imbeciles, morons, or borderlines. The one man, Schicklgruber [Hitler], whose IQ is probably not below normal, had in a few years brought infinitely more disaster and suffering to this world than have all of the innumerable mental defectives in all countries and all generations combined."
In 1940, four years before the publication of Asperger's study, the systematic killing of disabled children in Viennese clinics was already well underway.
Book information is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Elijahs-Cup-Co.../dp/074320445X
I actually just couldn't go to the Holocaust Museum. A friend of mine and I went down to DC and were going to go, after going to the last display of the AIDS quilt in its entirety on the Mall. It was so big that they couldn't fit it anywhere else after a while. My cousin died of AIDS and I was so overwhelmed at the sight of all those quilt pieces, that I just couldn't stomach anything more. I do wish that I had made the effort to go a different time, while we still lived close enough for a day drive.
This kind of stuff just terrifies me, because we have to be so vigilant to protect our rights in our democracy to ensure that that kind of persecution and destruction does not happen in this country. I thought long and hard about getting a diagnosis for my son and actually thought about this issue - if society ever got so bad again that they decided to "eliminate" those who have a disability if they are a "drain" on our nation's funds. (Please note I do NOT think that - but there ARE those who do feel that people with disabilites are a drain on our funds). The thought of that just terrifies me that something like that might happen to my son - even though I fully feel he will be a contributing member of society and be able to "hold his own". But, if they did a search of medical records (which right now are private, but one never knows if that will change at some point!) and found that he had a diagnosis of autism - well, who knows.
Okay, I need to not think about this right now!
Oh, and I've already been planting the seed in my oldest's brain that he should go to college locally so he can live at home!
Well yeah. That thought occurred to me - but what about when dh and I aren't around any longer? I should add this was in that phase where I was kind of crazy from all the stress and wondering.
But, I did really think long and hard about getting a diagnosis - all sorts of things like if he would ever be excluded from insurance coverage due to his diagnosis (which a lot of life insurance companies do), would it ever affect his potential future employment?
I should also add that the day he was baptized I cried because soon he would be getting his first communion, then confirmation and they he would be leaving me and getting married. As you can tell, I tend to look far into the future! [QUOTE=snoopywoman]
I thought long and hard about getting a diagnosis for my son and actually thought about this issue - if society ever got so bad again that they decided to "eliminate" those who have a disability if they are a "drain" on our nation's funds. (Please note I do NOT think that - but there ARE those who do feel that people with disabilites are a drain on our funds). The thought of that just terrifies me that something like that might happen to my son - even though I fully feel he will be a contributing member of society and be able to "hold his own". But, if they did a search of medical records (which right now are private, but one never knows if that will change at some point!) and found that he had a diagnosis of autism - well, who knows.
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Yikes Snoopywoman! I can honestly say that was the last thing on my mind when seeking a diagnosis.
Some of the most recent cases of genocide were in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and now Darfur. In each, you had one group trying to systematically eliminate the other.
When Hitler was in power, people with disabilities were institutionalized. The government had easy access to them. Today, most children live with their families. If some nut came to power and took the time to look through medical records, they would have to come to my home and get through me and DH to get to my boys.
OK WOW LeAnn I had to see this for myself! Here are the Google images I found:
and this video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=t_HMYNlpzdc
I accidentally went through a kind of holocaust memorial in Boston some time ago, and it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
It was October, very chilly with blue skies. There was this urban median, kinda, a skinny strand of a walkway and benches, landscaping that meandered down this street. What I thought were sculptures were in fact memorials. They were these gigantic plexiglass rectangles standing on their ends, like miniature skyscrapers. They were strung along this walkway, open on either side to walk through, and appeard to be frosted glass.
When I stepped inside the first one, I noticed a grating below me and thought - neat! It was one of those steam grates. Dumb ole me thought "this is to keep the art patrons warm while they walk in and out of these giant rectanglar sculptures."
Then I looked up. The steam was rising out of the top of the clear rectangles like smoke stacks. And the frosting on the glass was really tiny names etched there...names of the victims and their ages. The clear columns were smoke stack memorials for each of the death camps in Nazi Germany.
I had no idea what I was looking at until the rising steam and the names connnected. Powerful. May we always remember so it will never come to pass again.
Thanks for posting this. I had learned this bit of history at some point in the past, but had never thought about it after my son was diagnosed. I also never considered the sociohistorical climate that Kanner and Asperger were working in. Perhaps it's no wonder that Asperger's work was pretty much forgotten until Lorna Wing came along in the 1980s.The Nazis also targeted homosexuals. I recently saw a documentary about it on HBO.
I've visited the Dachau concentration camp. To walk on the very ground where horrific crimes against humanity took place is overwhelming. Yet, I felt it was important that I visit.
I really hope young students today are still reading Anne Frank. For adults, I personally would recommend Night by Elie Wiesel.
Genocide continues today. Just look at what's happening in Darfur.
Apparently while the nazi's were performing their euthinasia program their was an outcry from some of the population because these people would dissapear and never be seen again. The nazi's had a solution, they made it underground. I just wanted to post that their were some from this time against this, and even in nazi germany they were able voice their opinion unfortunatly the killings never stopped, they became more secretive.
What it boils down to is that nobody really did anything to really try and stop all that was happening, 1940 while aspringers and kanners was being studied (i did not know this, good info) WW2 had just began.
It is a very unfortunate part of our human history all that went on during those years, its really amazing that the collective will of the rest of the world could put a stop (thru war) the nazis, and while their technical achivements are important, the minds behind the party were very evil.I almost vomited at the Holocost museum as well (the one in DC). Dh and I went the year that it opened and really didn't know what to expect. It was a very intense experience.Nick- I agree. The HOlocaust museum made me feel physically ill. Just to see all the shoes from the victims....it was horrendous to see. It will never cease to amaze me that so many people followed that total evil lunatic
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SB4C101&show_a rticle=1
Let us not forget.
OMG!!!!
[QUOTE=stickboy26]Not to take anything away from this finding, but I can't think of any part of the Holocaust that I didn't find disturbing at best.[/QUOTE]
That about covers it.
My early (middle to jr hi) education emphasized the holocaust to an unusual extent. I went to a school with a largely Jewish school board, and I am so grateful. We should never be allowed to forget the horrors propagted by one man ... with the consent of many.
Even US people of that era absorbed many of the attitudes that permitted Hitler to get where he did -- Eugenics, a certain horror or revulsion toward disability, and blatant racism, to name a few.
It's always disturbing to read this. I think most folks are aware (or at least I hope they are) of what Hilter did to the Jews. However I don't think it is as well know that other groups were targeted as well.
Here is a quote from wiki:
While victims of the Holocaust were primarily Jews, the Nazis also persecuted and often killed millions of members of other groups they considered inferior, undesirable or dangerous. These groups included Poles and some other Slavic peoples; Soviets (particularly prisoners of war); Roma (also known as Gypsies); some Africans, Asians and others who did not belong to the "Aryan race"; the mentally ill and the physically disabled; homosexuals; and political opponents and religious dissidents such as communists, trade unionists, and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Despite often widely varying treatment (some groups were actively targeted for genocide, while others were mostly not), these victims all perished alongside one another in the Nazi concentration camps, according to the extensive documentation left behind by the Nazis themselves (written and photographed), eyewitness testimony (by survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders), and the statistical records of the various countries under occupation.
Not to take anything away from this finding, but I can't think of any part of the Holocaust that I didn't find disturbing at best.You know what rings in my ears? When Columbia had the Iranian president come speak and he said "we have no homosexuals in Iran." Did this guy seem like Hitler for a moment there, or what?
I apologize for brushing up against current day politics, but this fellow scares me big time.
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