Disability Studies and the Legacies of Eugenics

Hadamar Day Two: Morning Session:

(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)

Some of us walked into town and were really struck by how it’s a sleepy little resort town. The clash of this kind of thing happening and in this kind of town, so nearby. This has been a bit of a tourist destination?

Yeah.

We went through about all of the documents last night. It was striking how everyone had a diagnosis even if it was social. Medical basis to everyone who came here even the ½ Jewish man. We were all struck by the one file by the man who did not die and wrote the three page letter in English. Someone who was in the institution and did not die. This was not someone with a disability, but a “mischling bastard” and he wrote fairly recently a 3 page letter in English describing his stay here.

Is that something you could read to me?

I don’t know how much time we have, but.

The letter is quite moving and upsetting. He came back in 1996 and wrote the letter in 1998. He was released into the Hitler youth, and then became a soldier and was taken into custody as a pow by the allies.

Might we pay you to photocopy records?

This is very difficult because of confidentiality issues. Usually we only work them here. I will ask the director of the archive.

Maybe only the letter in English.

The only problem is if it’s spread out at universities. We need a permission form. I can copy one, but you need to take care not to pass it around.

The files that went with individuals in concentration camps. They seem available and open to the public. These aren’t because they’re medical files?

Yes, and that’s why the exhibition does not give full names. Because they are medical records.

So even though they’re false medical records?!

Yes but many of them had real diagnoses for the time they were in. It may be different now, but then it was true. It may be that people came here because of political reasons (came to other institutions), here it was because of psychiatric diagnoses.

It seems that the same thing could be said about the concentration camp files. So the fact that that is now public record shows that there is no shame there. This secrecy reinforces the shame.

I agree. One of the main reasons why names aren’t fully published is because of families. Don’t want to be involved. It has to do with shame and things people want to hide. It’s not something that anyone is proud. For example a colleague worked with families and their attitudes. There were a lot of people who wanted to talk to her. But there were many that said don’t come in an obvious way so that people know you’re a researcher, come at night, by the side entrance. In Germany, there is a group of the victims and lots of the members don’t want that they receive mail from this group (with the address obvious on the outside). Even if involved with a pressure group, they are very concerned about the stigma associated .

There’s been somewhat a similar discussion in the states re: the Kallikak family. The real name of the family will not be shared because of the shame it might bring.

It would be interesting to compare this with Simon Wiesenthal, German concentration camp survivor who set up a foundation to find Nazi war criminals. His institute is in Vienna.

I noticed that you also only list initials of perpetrators.

The exhibition is 15 years old and that might explain why. Today we would hopefully make it different.

Do you think the living descendents now know what happened to the people who died here.

Last year we had 60 letters from families who wanted to know if a member of their family had been killed here. Each year this number increases. Now it’s the generation of the third and they find it easier to ask. This is why they write letters, come here… Often it’s that someone dies and another is looking at all the papers and they find a document from Hadamar, for example, and they come here. Often suspicion leads them here.

Is a lot of your time spent dealing with these families?

Yes, but mainly we write to them. Some of them come here, but only a few.

I think the other thing to remember is that for a number of the people who are here because of sterilization. They were already removed from their families, a number of them don’t have descendents. Biesold did have a lot of people coming to him. It seems to me to distinguish between pressure groups and intellectual groups. It is holding back a lot of the research. Important in terms of getting access to everything that is happening. Someone was able to interview direct parties, disguised identity of course but everyone knew who they were talking about. ANY ideas about how people go about finding survivors?

I know how my colleague did this. She only wrote to families who had previously written to us. Because they wanted to know something. We don’t track people based on records. It’s the other way around. A lot of people she wrote to wanted to talk.

There could be a permission slip or form when they write to you. Some people don’t want to talk about this, others will, others will want reparations.

Yes, that’s right.

I’m thinking about what you’re asking. There are so many layers of issues. We’re so many generations out. In the BBC film you have to interview very old people about a memory from when they were very young. How able are we to do that? Remember something from our youth. Even the BBC could see the enormous amount of sign language, and someone has to interpret that and work with that as well. And then the medical records that are blocked at a certain level.

As an anthropologist I can look at something. Statistics are different, so this is were interdisciplinary is strong.

How active are survival groups and is something being done to keep these groups alive even though most survivors are beginning to die.

The survivor group is called, “Bund der Euthanasie”-Geschädigten und Zwangsterilisierten”

Translates title

This association was founded in 1987 because it wasn’t possible before. They are working. They have offices in Westfahlen near Bielefeld. Their main focus is working with victims or their families (of the euthanasia crimes).. they tried to create a lobbying power, and tried to get a reparation for the victims. And for example, the law of forced sterilization still exists. It exists because the Americans did not cancel the law because “it might be useful in the future.” It is not valid anymore but is still existent. They tried to cancel it, but nowadays because Germany is a federal republic. Today it would be a state law and not federal, and say they can’t cancel this law that is on the federal level.

A lot of state laws still exist in the states.

This one can’t be cancelled because it’s at the federal level. They also make a lot of policy regarding information. They are doing a good job and are a small pressure group, they have some success.

Their members are only victims, the children of victims. Not everyone could be a member.

Q: How many files are there all together? Do all 10, 000 people killed here have a file? What percentage of the murdered does a file exist for?

The 10,000 killed in T4 those records are in Berlin. About 30% of all the T4 records exist, I don’t know exactly from Hadamar. Victims from 1942 on, we have a lot but not all the records. Some are missing.

Q: What happened to the other 70 percent?

They were destroyed just before the war ended.

After killed, files sent to T4. After the war the T4 went to Linz in Austria. There a lot of files were destroyed. Then went to Thuringen. There somehow they were brought to the archives of the east german secret police. Those records survived until the wall came down. After some years,
We always thought the records did not exist. Then, about 10 years ago or less they were found. And then they were computerized and they also had to be remade, they were in a really bad condition. They had to be wiederhergestellt. This is why today you can ask in the Bundesarchiv, but some years ago it wasn’t possible. Rarely could you find any record then.

Q: When did the T4 office move to Linz?

43 or 44. but ask Petra Fuchs.

The 30 percent are in the Berlin Bundesarchiv.

What would be the best way to do the files? W
They are here.

I have to get a list of which diagnosis and before I will pass you a formula which you must fill out to use the records. On the back side you have to sign.

It’s not in English.

Is it a confidentiality form?

Yes, it’s about that.

Only fill out name, address, profession that would be interesting for us. And sign it.

Can we write down non-identifying information from the records?

Yes.

When we get back, I will send everyone the transcripts of our discussions.

The diagnoses for which we found records are:

Before you leave can we talk about the time schedule.

I’ll tell you to which diagnoses:
Deafness, schizophrenia, deformity we are not sure, feeblemindedness, depression and blindness.

Nothing on dwarfism or brittle bone disease.

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