Personal Blogs

The Holocaust and the disabled community 

 In order to understand why I found Mrs Goldberg dismissal outrageous we need to take a look at the fact that after the second world war; the world discovered that the Jews were not the only victims of the Nazis. The disabled community suffered greatly as a consequence to the Nazis’ determination to eliminate as many disabled people as possible too. The Eugenic theory played its part in the justification of the killings of disabled people.

(Historicengland.org.uk, 2019 )

Eugenic theory which promoted the elimination of the disabled and those who was categorised as impure members of the German society left the disabled community with a death toll of approximately “275,000 disabled people killed by the Nazis”(Bbc.co.uk, 2014).

The consequences of people believing in the Eugenic theory  were not confined to Europe only. 

For example in the United States of America, the little understanding of disability led to vague generalised labelling of syndromes from doctors (www.youtube.com, n.d.). The Down or Williams syndrome as well as Autism or Dementia were classified as debilitating without appropriate research about the best way to look after each individual’s  needs.

Children were sent to Fairview institution but suffered from being separated from their family which can be considered as emotional abuse. Many protocols were implemented that breached human rights such as the forced sterilisation of all Fairview’s patients (www.youtube.com, n.d.).

Other, more severe mistreatments resulted in the death of children. 

Today, there are still many issues to be solved. The WHO (World Health Organization, 2021) tells us “that there are Over 1 billion people living with some form of disability” worldwide.

And disabled people still have so many challenges to overcome from high unemployment, to lack of access to adequate health care or racism and  discrimination, to name a few.

The Holocaust and other groups of people 

The Nazis used the same stupid and inaccurate arguments, not just to exterminate the Jews but also against people of colour and the travellers community. Indeed, “Travelling people were the second-largest group slaughtered by the Nazis. There were Roma who stood up against the Nazis, but that is not shown in the media.” (LazenbyMonday, January 27 and 2020, 2020)

“As many as 35 million non-Jews were killed by the Nazis in the course of the war” only to justify a fundamentally unproven and delusional ideology in order to rob, enslave, kill and create fear in Europe and beyond (Pencak Schwartz, 2019).

The BBC listed those who Who fought for Britain during World War II as the below: 

• The British Empire and Dominions raised a total of 8,586,000 men for military service
• More than 5,000,000 came from the British Isles
• 1,440,500 hailed from India, while 136,000 came from South Africa
• Of those who fought 629,000 were Canadians
• 413,000 came from Australia and 128,500 from New Zealand
• More than 134,000 travelled from other colonies, including some 10,000 from the Caribbean

The organisation Worldwar2.org.uk adds that the estimated casualties for : 

• Germany reached just under 7.4 million.
• Soviet soldiers it was roughly around  8.7 million 
• British 700,000 military casualties and 60,000 civilian deaths
• Estimated USSR losses  now stand at 26.6 million.
• Poland’s death toll was between 5.6 and 5.8 million.
• USA military dead is around 416,800 people

Casualties listed here include about 4 to 12 million war-related famine deaths in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, India that are often omitted from other compilations of World War II casualties.

Finally, etre republicain explains that there were an estimated of  130 000 to 500 000 Roma who have been killed during the conflict and perhaps more according to some historians and between 10 000 to 15 000 homosexuals died in the hands of the Nazis in the concentration camps. (www.estrepublicain.fr, n.d.)

Although, these are estimated numbers, it does not take into account the “44000 Native Americans who served on all front in the conflict” and the soldiers from Senegal, Mali, Benin, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Pierre et Miquelon, Nouvelle Calédonie, French Guiana, French Polynesia etc…

Hence, Mrs Goldberg statements were inaccurate but not an act of support for Nazism.  Also, did the Jewish community have any compassion for the others who died in horrible circumstances during the second world war? You were not the only victims of the Holocaust and that is an undeniable FACT. 

This is why the view has lost me on this matter and I wish that they could think about the consequences of their actions when it comes to racism and discrimination. 

Frederique