My Thoughts On the History of Rreatment of Individuals With Disabilities

One way that humans can relate to one another is by finding a common enemy. Hitler did it by making anyone who did not fit his ideal image someone to be feared. The most commonly recognized group to be targeted by the Nazis was Jewish people. The United States has targeted several groups of people but many groups have not been heard. This week in class I learned about the start of eugenics, Aktion T4 and modern institutionalization in the U.S. and around the world.
The most well known unfair treatment of people in the United States is probably the treatment of black people starting with slavery and continuing through the sixties during segregation. Asian immigrants were used to build railroads across the United States and were deprived of forming unions. Native Americans have had a long history in the United States of being attacked. And in my opinion the least talked about group to be targeted are people with disabilities.
Individuals with disabilities, eugenics, Aktion T4, and modern institutionalization all share the ideology that these people are inferior and contaminate society. I think that people target weaker people, and do anything they can to try and make themselves feel closer as a group. If you share a common enemy you have something in common. I still think this has been a factor in many instances of prejudice in society.
In class I learned about the history of eugenics and institutions in the United States. I was shocked to learn that institutions existed. I was more shocked to when I found out how people were treated at these places. The saddest thing is that institutions still exist today. There are some in the United States but we watched videos in class of institutions in other countries.
There are many countries that take people with disabilities or people who are simply undesirable and lock them away. Once the people are out of sight they are forgotten. I saw people tied to beds; people who had been lying-in their own feces for weeks, people who spent their lives not moving. Seeing this disturbed me. It is happening right now and there are more disturbing things happening around the world as I type this.
I was looking forward to learning more about the Holocaust because I have always found World War II fascinating. I think it is because of how dynamic and dramatic the war was, and how well documented in books and movies. Hitler, Pearl Harbor, The internment camps, Israel, the American generals, and the German perspective. The whole topic is mind boggling.
In class we focused on the creation of concentration camps. It began with T4, a group created by Hitler and his cronies designed to eliminate undesirable people. It was created over a lunch where they talked about how to solve what they referred to as a problem. The Nazis would round up the undesirables take them into a field and shoot them one by one, but this was taking a psychological toll on the soldiers. Then they tried putting them in vans and filling them with carbon dioxide from the engine. This was effective but it took too long and was not very efficient. Later they developed the gas chamber.
In class we watched a video about one of the first gas chambers. It was used to kill people with disabilities. A family of people in wheel chairs visited the chamber. The camp had been turned into some kind of hospital, which I found disturbing, considering all that had taken place there. A nurse was interviewed about her experience working at the camp. She said the people looked like they were in pain but she trusted the doctors. I saw mob mentality at work. I once spoke to a German man about the holocaust and asked him how it happened. He said “one step at a time”.
I was saddened by what I saw and learned about this week in class. I learned that behind the holocaust and Action T4 was an American invention called eugenics. Before Hitler and the gas chambers there was eugenics. It was developed by American doctors and based on the Darwin theory. Eugenics is the idea that there is a dominant or more developed race than all others. Eugenicists in the U.S. decided that white people were the dominant race and should not breed with anyone else because it would weaken the gene pool.
Eugenicists studied the art work of different races with the idea that the most realistic depictions were made by the smartest people. The most realistic depictions came from the Romans and the Greeks. Many people especially in Africa made abstract art. Some races used metaphors. Thus it was decided that white Europeans were the most developed race.
Statistics were created that showed how likely a certain ethnicity was to commit a crime. Looking at it today it seems ridiculous but I understand how it happened. I have heard people say things like “How could anyone believe something so ridiculous?”, or “How can someone be so cruel?” I am disgusted by the inhumanity and cruelty that humans are capable of, but I am not totally shocked. I have watched videos of people being bullied while others saw this and did nothing. I have watched people fight each other in a ring. Just Google Darfur images and it becomes clear that there is a side of humanity Americans don’t like to think about.
I don’t know why people act the way they do. Maybe it is because of some primitive instinct for survival, maybe it how a person is raised, or maybe there is not a logical explanation. The fact is it happens all the time.