Disability Studies and the Legacies of Eugenics

Transcript of July 12th discussion of Biesold, Horst. Crying Hands: Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany.

(Transcript originally completed for accessiblity purposes and should not be considered a verbatim account of the proceedings. This transcription is meant to represent a general sense and may include gaps and mistaken information. Please request permission to quote)

Brenda: this article is very brief, it’s from a book that Cathy Kudlick reviews in a paragraph in her recent book. I thought I’d start talking about the book in general and then go backwards, forwards, and present about other work going on and the context around all of this. I want to say at the start about why deaf people would be interested in uncovering info in this area and the difficulties deaf researchers find in getting into the archives. Deaf people are interested because they were included in the ???(sorry.) Even for things like sterilization, deaf people are not clearly marked, categories of certains kinds of people don’t include deaf people. Because of Alexander Grahm (ag) Bell who was key in the eugenics movement. He tried to discover all deaf families in America, 48 page document, he didn’t get them all but tried to prove that intermarriage led to more deaf people, tied to why he’s against sign language, leads to intimacy, intermarriage etc.. he knew this wasn’t accurate.

Maybe all of you are aware that his wife was deaf, not genetically, and he was a teacher of the deaf. He plays a central role in eugenics. Mabel Bell would not participate with him in his work with deaf people, doesn’t reply to him in letters-- he asked her why she wasn’t interested and she didn’t reply to that either. But she was interested in his work on sheep. Deaf people have a long history with eugenics. Across international places I know of 4 institutes devoted to deaf genetics, one of which is Gallaudet. In 98, Gallaudet U Press began sponsoring an institute, first one on nazi germany, in 2001, one on deafness, disability, and eugenics. They’ve already discovered key genes/chromosomes that are markers for deafness, in Tel Aviv they’ve cured a mouse of connection 26 and cured him. He was named Beethoven. Did they cure him of being a mouse? Has he composed a 10th symphony? No. Deaf people are associated as idiots and imbeciles so can tease them through records, especially if both deaf and dumb, absolutley likely they were institutionalized, and because of deaf institutions, the little that we know is that it would have been easy for nazi’s to have found deaf people because of deaf schools and institutions. A premier school for oralism is in Leipzig, started in 1832, was it oralist, no 1798, oralist, the oral method has long been called the German Method, Samuel Heinecker was the father, associated key german sounds with different smells, Brenda has book with her. School still exists, no deaf kids there, hard of hearing who are oral, still standing institutions.

A 1998 international conference was on deaf people and nazi germany, book from it came out in recently, from Galludet University Press. Donna, the editor, has an interesting piece coming out in The Journal of Oral History, but that’s not the name of the journal, it’s a piece about what it was like to get testimonies from deaf survivors and talks aobut the language issues, the difficulty of reclassifying deaf people so we can’t find records, also literacy records, deaf people kept out of normal schools so when you try to find out information deaf people haven’t filled out written questionerres. People were using at least four of them in USA and were using home sign languages with no root in national languages, and Yiddish sign languages, deaf people were switching among these.

One thing in deafness and nazi germany--- A national standing german deaf club was in germany, a film produced "becant menschen", tried to paint a picture of themselves as ultimate germans, as great group of people and german to the core. This was to counterbalance persecution. The piece in this book has several stills from the film. I haven’t seen the film myself but will in August. From the Galluadet Institution, ? language studies is about to publish a whole issue from the conference. It also did an issue in April on issues of translations in oral history. Donna has a great piece in that too about how hard it is to get information on deaf people. Q: Is it available on line? No, but abstracts are. It’s through Project Muse (so maybe on line?).

Between the two conferences, the second was more in regards to modern human genome. It was incredible because there was critical historical work but it was also direct.

Teor of institute from Tel Aviv and also genetic counselors clear that genertic counselors felt pressues from both sides. Not getting the info they needed to pass on to deaf community. What do the counselors counsel? At Gallaudet? Not to have children? No, actually that’s where I found out about my family, certain physical markers they look for, a mark on the ear, my sister had 2 babies who didn’t have kidneys, there was a syndrome there, but there was no way for them to be 100 per cent. They counseled prebirth screening, I refused amniocentisis, but did screening at the time the kidneys develop. My sister’s babies were almost poisoned, it’s very complicated. A lot of anything to do with genetics is not in only one trait, it comes out in more than one way, so much of deafness is that way. Almost nothing is a pure deaf gene.

Wanted to talk about a panel at the US Holocaust museum in aug 2001 on nazi persecution of deaf people. After the 1998 event, people from the holocaust museum had been there and were amazed. They organized a panel and it began with the Director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, then even Rosenshcatd (?) into t4, it goes on forever, online at US holocaust museum-- google "deafness". Brenda has a copy.

Patrica Herber at advanced holocaust studies, does more specific, funnel article where she tries to get at deafness, gets to positive and negative genetics which was core of ag Bell, he wanted only positive genetics. He writes a letter to support national..eugenics, committee (the institute that develps at cold springs harbour eventually.) Disagreement about what it’s called. According to Bell, he knew that deafness wasn’t just genetic and if two people could prove that they lost their hearing he didn’t want them married because he wanted to destroy deaf culture. Not just a matter of genetics but to destroy anything that didn’t fit his ideal. Yes, says Brenda, using genetics as an argument to eradicate deafness and sign language, invents visible speech, that’s how he stumbles into telephone technology. He needs to quash sign language to achieve what he wants .

Some nice things in Herber's article has breakdown of numbers re sterilization. Listing numbers. Deafness is not marked anywhere in the statistics, but Donna has interviewed two people who were sterilized. Nuremberg law of 1935 to forbid genetic categories to marry, 1933 genetics law forbids deaf marriage, thinking then was that deafness was the only condition that had heritable in front of it. A lot of people could argue.

Read summary of 4 people during nazi era from western deaf club. It was interesting because one was also jewish and one was killed, another died during ww2. Another, not genetically deaf, was allowed to live, and was not sterilized. He set up the deaf SS group. And they had by the end 8000 members.

Mark: what Ingrid’s raised is important and other readings I’ve done around this seem to point to important issue:the role of groups of disabiled people in collaborating with nazi’s. The labour movement gave thought to this question. Prior to the involvement of the USSR in ww2 there was a theory called social fascism which was popular in the labour movement, in order to say that collaborators pave the way for fascists to follow. This is goes unexplored in disability studies, the extent to which collaborators paven the way for series of attacks to go on that undermine their own collective.
One reason why this is a period and area that people in deaf studies are not going into, not just in germany but in Russia and US, we know that a lot of deaf people were turned over by other deaf people because this would prove…? Deaf people were considerd a tight knit community. People within deaf community, in schools, were turning them in. Want to dig in Leipzig archives, and another area in Austria, there’s a jewish deaf boy's school, 137 boys were taken but there’s no record where they were taken.

Sandy: the new book Brenda’s mentioned, the most chilling movement. At the same time deaf people did resisit. Author of Crying Hands mentioned this in earlier book. There is a narrative used in young people’s education-- a young deaf german girl whose uncle was executed because he supported her but the deaf associations were nazified and jewish members were expelled. One exception is Irwin Stemmler, he was one who didn’t let threats of persecution keep him from being true to deaf Jewish friends. Expelled from a group because he wouldn’t be intimidated, hr dared expulation from association. But another piece I have, we looked at memorials today, they have plaques: "from this building 146 deaf jewish citizens were removed by fasciets bandits"… This was on the Israelitie Institute for Deaf in Berlin. Same kind of thing for the blind.( From old jewish survivor in its tricky quote, sorry.) In this connection, let us mention a matter of significances, a monument in the honour of deaf Austrians. We don’t know if the plaques are still there. There was some solidarity, cross-disabilities groups formed.

One thing we know in regards to deaf institutions, they were already there. Patricia Herber points out, read re Heinrich Hermann, was one of the few directors who resisted. He was the director of a deaf school in Wwilhemlsdore. He refused to fill out any of the forms or to do any of the work. They have no way to get at numbers or anything. When was the film made?

Was there a translation of this movie?

Yeah.

The Title: Misunderstood People
(verkannte menschen)

They do now have the records that about 1/3 of the german deaf population were sterilized.

Other than that, this chapter, the book is amazing in itself. When it came across the press – it’s a dissertation translated into English – it’s extraordinarily uneven.

Horst hasn’t been trained in survey research, oral histories, much less one on this kind of magnitude.

The book itself is emotionally wrenching.

It ends with two testimonials (the public talk). Ironically enough their testimonials were not on the website. Didn’t say why. Asked someone, but haven’t gotten a response.

For all sorts of reasons, I guess. At the end it just says, their names and “deaf holocaust survivor”. Like most academic things, the testimonials received much less publication than the speaker did, himself.

Questions, comments?

R: Can you tell us more about the author?

No, except that there’s deafness in his family. He’s not deaf himself. The press had encouraged him to write more RE methodology but he didn’t. It’s originally written in German.

When was it published in Germany? 1988 (in English). Perhaps 1996?

One of the things that struck me in these articles is the degree to which there is an effort to use poor conditions to increase the mortality rate. Lack of food, heat, etc. The reigning idea is to keep these murders as silent as possible or to make them look as natural as possible. Responsibiity shifts from administrators to weak individuals.

Theres a strong statement in the other article re reporting the final solution to the press. I was totally bowled over by the idea of reporting it to the press. But others have suggested that the press was totally controlled by the government.

That lines up with the whole secret/elaborate bureaucracy record keeping strategy.

We should ask at the archives. A standard question to our experts. Key questions like what happens to students who are deemed ineducable? Happens so often in deaf history. Mentally unfit. Particularly if they don’t speak. Biesold says that being behind in deaf schools was a selection marker.

I think it’s really useful to read Crying Hands in conjunction with Surviving in Silence—another galludet press book.

Two things: 1. Often when people have discussions of passing/non-passing we have presentist assumptions. If you’re not out it’s a sense of internalzed oppression or shame. In that book there was a story re how deaf people in the community communicated with each other so that you couldn’t see the deafness. No signing, no communicating in this form of outward manifestation. A story in the book is of a friend who was marching at the front of a line. The soldier behind him hollered halt. He didn’t hear, and got shot. A form of solidarity that doesn’t have presentist assumption.Mistakenly getting shot happens today too. Right before I moved to Minnesota there was a gang that saw a man getting on a bus. He was gesturing something and they misinterpreted it as a gang sign. Mom made a clear sign to make sure Ingrid did not sign in public.

Violence on the Galladet campus. Deaf identity can be managed, relevant to Nazi history.

I want to say that passing, what deaf people have done over and over in America, creates difficulties in uncovering the history. Deaf history is done in America. Deaf people have always performed to the extreme their national identity. This lies behind why they want to distance themselves from pwds. Don’t want to be associated with low economic rate. High sport activity, beauty pagents. This is us, that’s them. If we go into this, we’ll discover a similar identity to studying nationalist identities. Wants to rip apart the seams dividing these two groups.

Interesting gender dynamic that is different between countries. Deaf schools by women vs. militaristic male dynamic in Germany. We’re still very much Aryan men.

Do I want to say this? In reading this and others about deafness, history and present. It’s always difficult because as we want to prove that deaf people are not all “retarded.” Didn’t belong there with those people, but no one does. Internalized oppression/hierarchy within groups. WE are taught to internalize. Helen Keller favored killing disabled babies because they were idiots. Internalized oppression can kill us as much as systematic oppression does.

Another, if you think about author who wrote “Normalization” Wolf Wolfensberger. Very important theorist in many ways yet still had problems communicating these issues between various groups. Some of the not so wonderful facets of NFB, which I certainly believe in and belong to. It’s like liberal feminism, it’s like Wellsley college. Women should excel regardless of what they excel in. Blind people should work, and it doesn’t matter what they do. NFB would support blind people who should get drafted.

It is the same problem we come to in fighting for a perfect world. WE struggle with that individually and collectively. Its very sad to hear about collaboration within Jews, deaf population. It’s very painful, but.

I want to go back to something I said. A lot of deaf people, the last figures done (1973), deaf people 60-73% marry deaf people. _In the Land of the Deaf_ We want to have deaf children. My students at Ohio are blown away by that. The legacy of eugenics is very interesting in that way. At the same time, they’re extremely proud of their genetic heritage.. And the fact that they want to find out the chance at them having a deaf child.
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Brenda, I think there was an article discussion recently about a couple coming in to a genetic counselor and saying I want a deaf child. Deena Davis, Howard Greene—two articles re this issue, very problematic.

There’s not a student alive who goes to Galladet for the education.

Genetics institute at galladet is very sensitive to the eradication issue. They set out the facts point blank.
In response to gerry’s question. The response to preference, selective abortion had been continuing with far less controversy until it was a lesbian couple doing this. Connection. They got a deaf sperm donor.

I think I would have to disagree with you about the amount of controversial in bioethics. This was here throughout. Maybe not in the media.

No I did mean the popular media.

Can I add a bit about historical-Bell’s involvement in eugenics in US. 1910-1920 began to get disenchanted because of the shift to almost exclusive negative eugenics as well as the influx of racist eugenics. More inline with Nazi germany. He called negative eugneics, "kakoeugenics". Dysgenics is negative eugenics. But part of positive eugenics was not letting deaf people marry one another.Kalikak family (good-bad in greek). Pseudonym.I remember a poster that said adoption of the Kallikak scheme to German families.

Concept circulating at UIC. Disability culture envy. Anxiety feeds. Bell seems to have this fear.

It’s interesting because he was really fighting for these laws, a zealot. But someone else said that deaf people shouldn’t be allowed to marry or have kids at all. But he really liked having a deaf wife. She was really quiet. He did move away from eugneics but he also supported laws that brought in Chinese people to work (without their families), but also avoided bringing in people from “brown” countries. He’s not my favorite person.

Benno article—announcement of final solution to press. Hereditable deafness specifically included in 1933 law. Science increasingly being used to allow for murder. Frame it in a benevolent end, then you could slowly leak it to the press. Eugneics was really astute re the rhetoric it used. Baby steps. Before you knew it possibilites were realities. You see that in every single instance.

All what Plato feared about rhetoric. It was always about possibility and possibility could always go wrong. Wanted nothing ot do with rhetoric.

Goddard, okay, we’ve tried institutionalization, marriage laws, sterilization. None of these we (?)

Hints at euthanasia, but doesn’t specifically name it. That’s where the germans picked up. Trying to wratchet up the magnitude of eugenics without mentioning extermination. In germany it became utterable.

It is important to note that germans were not only influenced by Binding and Hoche. What’s the proof? Goddard’s international reputation. Goddard. Germans felt they were way behind.

You all know this, but it seems that key documents are the letters sent from killing centers to the families. Constantly scripted argument of possibility. I tell my students, it is disturbing, but if you introduce possibilities, open up a little door, historically you will see that again and again they’ll go to it. Cochlear implants – documentary Sound and Fury- so much time arguing about it, the possibility finally just becomes in you. Mom and daughter get them.

Very disturbing principle, but also good in other instances.
Aly—discourse presents resistance but also adherence. People willing to apply it go beyond it. Sets up an entire discursive continum

Another parallel dimension worth considering. At the same time in America as deaf people were being seen to threaten the nation, in the way that they were positioned as this threat. Rise of oralism and rapid immigration challenging nation’s sense of itself. Similar later parallel in germany’s redefinition of sense of self and deaf people being posed as threats to nation alongside immigrants and jews. In America, the objection is to deaf culture, there’s this rational that sign language is akin to apes, primitive form of evolution. And that’s not present in the nazi literature nearly as much. That’s a good point.There is a whole discourse of jews speaking with gestures as showing their primitiveness.

For Bell it wasn’t just gestures, but also that this group of people is choosing not to be part of us. That really weirds people out. I was scared to death of deaf culture for a time.George Mosse says same thing about Jews- stubborn dfference marks them as inferior.

During the nazi regime they didn’t talk about gestures because people didn’t use them. People in west berlin sign completely in different way than that of east Berliners. Yes, they will develop their own sign language, but it can be very very closed. A high possibility is that they simply didn’t use it. If you see a picture of the deaf kids in the movie, you see them in front of a mirror. Only slowly is sign language developing as an acceptable form of communication.There’s something very Foucauldian about that picture.

Thank you, Brenda.

Sharon L. Snyder, Ph. D.,
Director, "Legacies of Eugenics" Summer Institute, Einstein Forum
Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Ph. D. Program in Disability Studies
Department of Disability and Human Development
University of Illinois at Chicago (MC 626)
1640 W. Roosevelt Rd. #207
Chicago IL 60608-6904 U.S.A.
E-mail: ssnyder@uic.edu Phone: (312) 413-1975 (Voice) Fax: (312) 996-0885