[D66] Holocaust Memorial Day: remembering the psychiatric patients who were victims of Nazi persecution

[A.OUT]

https://www.vergetenslachtoffers.nl/

On 27-01-2020 13:37, A.OUT wrote:
> Het feit dat ze van de Holocaust een uitsluitend joodse aangelegenheid 
> maken zie je wel aan het dragen van keppeltjes bij de ceremonie's. 
> Minderheden die ook slachtoffer werden, worden niet herdacht. 
> Nederlanders kijken wederom weg... (Niet verrassend in een 'land' 
> waarbij euthanasie van psychiatrische patienten genormaliseerd is.)
> 
> On 27-01-2020 10:29, A.OUT wrote:
>> (Hier hoor je Rutte dus niet over. Het gaat alleen maar over de 
>> jodenvervolging.)
>>
>> https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/blog/holocaust-memorial-day-remembering-psychiatric-patients-who-were-victims-nazi-persecution 
>>
>>
>> Holocaust Memorial Day: remembering the psychiatric patients who were 
>> victims of Nazi persecution
>> 27 January 2017
>>
>> We’re all familiar with the horror of the Nazi attempts to annihilate 
>> the Jewish population in the 1940s – the Holocaust.
>>
>> One of the less well-known aspects of Nazi policy was the genocide 
>> that included the slaughter of up to 275,0001 psychiatric patients. 
>> The majority of them, like me, had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. A 
>> further 400,000 people were sterilised on medical grounds.
>>
>> Nazi persecution
>>
>> Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis attempted to kill all Jewish people 
>> in Europe. This is known as the Holocaust (The Shoah in Hebrew). In 
>> addition, the Nazis targeted gypsies, black people, Slavic people, gay 
>> people, people with disabilities political opponents and those whose 
>> religious beliefs conflicted with Nazi ideology.
>>
>> This year’s theme for Holocaust Memorial Day is “how can life go on?” 
>> It includes remembering past events, encouraging us to consider how we 
>> are facing hate today and how we can help people from persecuted 
>> groups to ensure that life goes on in the face of hate and persecution.
>>
>> With these themes in mind, consider some of the arguments used to 
>> promote the murderous policy adopted toward psychiatric patients and 
>> why we must be aware of the impact this thinking could have now and in 
>> the future.
>>
>> In the 1930s the eugenics movement was well established in the US and 
>> UK. The work of Ernst Rüdin and Franz Kallmann reinforced this - they 
>> believed that schizophrenia was simply an inherited disease. It became 
>> part of the quest for rassenhygiene (racial hygiene), which drove the 
>> Holocaust with mass murder at its core.
>>
>> But this interpretation of the science was by no means the only 
>> driver. One early motivation was cutting the cost of care for 
>> psychiatric patients. Funding for care decreased as demand increased.2
>>
>> In 1920, Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche published Permission for the 
>> Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life. In it, they asked the question 
>> “Is there human life [whose] prolongation represents a perpetual loss 
>> of value, both for its bearer and for society as a whole?” They 
>> answered this by describing patients as “mentally dead”. This argument 
>> was repeated in, among others, The Eradication of the Less Valuable 
>> from Society.2
>>
>> Hitler adopted these arguments. The result was a memorandum on "the 
>> destruction of life unworthy of life" and a draft law that included 
>> the following provision:
>>
>> "The life of a person who, because of incurable mental illness, 
>> requires permanent institutionalisation and is not able to sustain an 
>> independent existence, may be prematurely terminated by medical 
>> measures in a painless and covert manner. Selected professors of 
>> psychiatry and asylum directors, known to be sympathetic to the plan, 
>> were asked to comment on the draft. All agreed that such a programme 
>> was necessary." 1,2,3
>>
>> On 1 September 1939, Hitler wrote a letter authorising the programme 
>> to kill psychiatric patients and, from October that year, a committee 
>> of psychiatrists assessed all patients. The committee identified the 
>> first 70,000 patients who were to die as part of the policy. By August 
>> 1941, records showed that 70,273 patients had been killed.
>>
>> The killing continued throughout the war. The exact figures are 
>> unknown but the best estimates give us 200,000-275,000, with a further 
>> 400,000 subjected to forced sterilisation.
>>
>> In short, the murder of about a quarter of a million,  just like many 
>> of our fellow citizens who today thrive in their families and 
>> workplaces, was based on poor science, cost cutting, economic 
>> prejudice, propaganda and media portrayals which presented us as 
>> worthless substandard human beings.
>>
>> What implications does this have for the present day?
>>
>> In Nazi Germany, a diagnosis of schizophrenia was a death sentence. 
>> Today it merely reduces life expectancy by 10-25 years (Laursen, 
>> Munk-Olsen, & Vestergaard, 2012). Thankfully, in large part attitudes 
>> towards people living with mental health problems have improved 
>> dramatically. However, this isn’t to say that discrimination doesn’t 
>> exist. We must remain ever vigilant.
>>
>> There is no better time to remember the importance of behaving as a 
>> whole community. We must never forget what happens when hatred, 
>> discrimination, poor science and blaming community problems on the 
>> most disadvantaged in communities goes unchallenged.
>>
>> References
>>
>>      Torrey, E. F., & Yolken, R. H. (2010). Psychiatric genocide: Nazi 
>> attempts to eradicate schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 36(1), 
>> 26–32. http://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbp097
>>      Burleigh, M. (1994). Death and Deliverance: “Euthanasia” in 
>> Germany c. 1900–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
>>      Muller-Hill, B. (1988). Murderous Science. Elimination by 
>> Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others, Germany, 1933-1945. 
>> New York, United States: Oxford University Press. 
>> http://doi.org/10.1126/science.241.4866.730
>>      Laursen, T. M., Munk-Olsen, T., & Vestergaard, M. (2012). Life 
>> expectancy and cardiovascular mortality in persons with schizophrenia. 
>> Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 25(2), 83–88. 
>> http://doi.org/10.1097/YCO.0b013e32835035ca
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