But it is impossible to separate this apprenticeship in savagery from its fully mature incarnation; it was in this kindergarten of eugenic barbarism that the Nazis learned the alphabets of their trade. The word genocide shares its root with gene—and for good reason: the Nazis used the vocabulary of genes and genetics to launch, justify, and sustain their agenda. The language of genetic discrimination was easily parlayed into the language of racial extermination. The dehumanization of the mentally ill and physically disabled (“they cannot think or act like us”) was a warm-up act to the
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