why+and+how+were+the+disabled+persecuted?



** Why and how were the disabled persecuted? **
A. The Nazis used genetics to help their plan to breed a master race. Many of the people mentioned were eliminated because their genes were seen as unfit. People who were disabled were a prime target for being eradicated. Those who were disabled were excluded from the national community. The persecution of the disabled was a part of the radical public health policies instated by the Nazis. The justification of this mass murder was that they are “unfit”; some are even classified as “biological enemies” (Roma and Jews fall under this category). On July 14, 1933, the German government passed “ Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases.” People with hereditary diseases " including mental illness, learning disabilities, physical deformity, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, and severe alcoholism"( United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) were under the threat of sterilization thanks to this law. This law’s passage also stared the third Reich’s propaganda campaign against the disabled. These videos labeled disabled as “life unworthy of life”, and meant to show the burden on society caused by disabled. At this time, the disabled were secretly euthanized (the Nazis used this term to refer to the systematic killing of the physically and mentally disabled). Eventually this secret program was discovered by the public when large amounts of disabled people went missing, and each had the same so called cause of death. to go to home page, click here