Deaf People in Hitler's Europe

by Donna F. Ryan (Editor), John S. Schuchman (Editor)

Inspired by the conference “Deaf People in Hitler’s Europe, 1933–1945,” hosted jointly by Gallaudet University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1998, this extraordinary collection, organized into three parts, integrates key presentations and important postconference research. Henry Friedlander begins “Part Racial Hygiene” by analyzing the assault on deaf people and people with disabilities as an integral element in the Nazi attempt to implement their theories of racial hygiene. Robert Proctor documents the role of medical professionals in deciding who should be sterilized or forbidden to marry, and whom the Nazi authorities would murder. In an essay written especially for this volume, Patricia Heberer details how Nazi manipulation of eugenics theory and practice facilitated the justification for the murder of those considered socially undesirable. “Part The German Experience” commences with Jochen Muhs’s interviews of deaf Berliners who lived under Nazi rule, both those who suffered abuse and those who, as members of the Nazi Party, persecuted others, especially deaf Jews. John S. Schuchman describes the remarkable 1932 film Misjudged People, which so successfully portrayed the German deaf community as a vibrant contributor to society that the Nazis banned its showing when they came to power. Horst Biesold’s contribution confirms the complicity of teachers who denounced their own students, labeling them hereditarily deaf and thus exposing them to compulsory sterilization. The section also includes the reprint of a chilling 1934 article entitled “The Place of the School for the Deaf in the New Reich,” in which author Kurt Lietz rued the expense of educating deaf students, who could not become soldiers or bear “healthy children.” In “Part The Jewish Deaf Experience,” John S. Schuchman discusses the plight of deaf Jews in Hungary. His historical analysis is complemented by a chapter containing excerpts from the testimony of six deaf Jewish survivors who describe their personal ordeals. Peter Black’s reflections on the need for more research conclude this vital study of a little-known chapter of the Holocaust.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published December 6, 2002

Reviews

[Shoshana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative and tragic. This is something I never really thought about in regards to the Holocaust.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very sad book but one that must be read for the sake of everybody because its history was nearly lost to time. It is a collection of essays and research on how deaf people fared under Hitler by several people. The essays are divided up in three sections. The first section describes Nazi policy and implementation of the laws meant to bolster Aryan purity by eliminating or sterilizing those deemed racially inferior, which included "congenitally deaf" people. This would have been pre-DNA profiling, and we did discuss how DNA could have been used for dark purposes by the Nazis in our book group. Part two dealt with German deaf people and how they became divided against themselves (and the Jewish deaf) when the Nazis invited their active participation in party matters even as their rights were stripped away. The third part looked at the very different experience of deaf Jews, of which very few managed to survive the war, thanks to the double strikes of being both deaf and a Jew.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the essays basically repeated information and threw out way too many names to keep up with. The second half of the book were real experiences of deaf Jews and was much more interesting.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hang on...i am writing a review in a few days...look for it. ;)

[Selena]

Filled in more of the history of the T-4 program that I learned about while TA-ing for The Holocaust course in grad school. Wish it would have delved deeper into the subject instead of essays that were at times very superficial.