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The Nazi T4 Program

Can it happen again?

By Iria Vasquez-PaezPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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This was a program of mass euthanasia targeted at disabled people of all kinds, just because they had a disability and were viewed as unfit. In modern times, disabled people are paid sub-minimum wage on the job, depending on how functional they are, which is similar to the equal work for women problem. So if you are female and disabled in some way you get paid less. Eugenicists called disabled people “life unworthy of life,” which in a modern context seems horrible. Before they started on the Jewish people, the Nazis went after disabled people to perfect their mass genocide plan. The term “t4” was named after the physical address of the program, in Berlin, Tiergartenstrasse 4.

The twisted part in all of this was that on August 18, 1939, the Reich Ministry of the Interior decided to launch a decree that physicians, nurses and midwives were forced to follow, that told them to newborn infants and children under the age of three who were born with severe mental or physical disability. Today they are trying to kill disabled people by limiting access to health care as well as bringing back the pre-existing condition nonsense that they used to have.

The Nazis encouraged parents to admit their children to pediatric clinics in Germany and Austria. These clinics were children’s killing wards where these children were murdered through lethal doses of medication or starvation. At first, the Third Reich targeted infants and toddlers. Then they got more ambitious going after young kids 17 years of age. Conservatives estimate that 5,000 physically and mentally disabled German children died from the child euthanasia program. The term “euthanasia” really means good death. Hitler tried to protect participating doctors, medical staff, and administrative assistants, when in Autumn, 1939, Hitler signed a secret authorization to do so.

Because of Hitler’s directive, Führer Chancellery director Phillip Bouhler and physician Karl Brandt led the killing operation. T4 operatives started six gassing installations for adults as part of their “euthanasia” action program. Anne Frank was originally taken to the concentration camps with her family only because her sister, Margot, had a learning disability. The gassing facilities were as follows: Brandenburg, on the Havel River near Berlin, Grafeneck, in southwestern Germany, Bernburg, in Saxony, Sonnenstein, also in Saxony, Hartheim, near Linz on the Danube in Austria, and Hadamar, in Hessen. Also in Autumn 1939, the t4 program issued a questionnaire that had a purpose, which was to find the disabled people so that they could be more easily rounded up.

This form went out to public health officials, public, and private hospitals mental institutions, and nursing homes for the chronically ill, which gave the impression that the purpose was to gather statistics on who was what. They categorized patients as those suffering from schizophrenia, epilepsy, or dementia, people not of German blood, the criminally insane or those who were committed as criminals, and those who had been living in said institution for more than five years.

Patients were sent by bus or train to gas chambers disguised as shower facilities, with records that wound up showing the patients died of natural causes. These days, disabled people have more of a life than they were allowed to in the 1940s. With modern advances in medications, schizophrenics can lead more or less normal lives spent outside of the hospital. Hitler’s euthanasia program continued until the end of the war. The Nazis also had programs in Poland and the Soviet Union were disabled patients were killed by the SS and police forces. In modern times, the alt-right might be genocidal by saying that disabled people should not have access to healthcare. It is why we have to fight to preserve the lack of pre-existing condition clause that they are trying too hard to bring back. The Nazis also tried to kill prisoners in the t4 program. The questionnaires for criminals wanted to know about their crimes as well as rude comments about the Fuhrer which was called a “mental deficiency.” Psychiatrists were given the right to kill their patients by injection or overdose.

Works Cited

http://remember.org/witness/wit-vic-med

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005200

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About the Creator

Iria Vasquez-Paez

I have a B.A. in creative writing from San Francisco State. Can people please donate? I'm very low-income. I need to start an escape the Ferengi plan.

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