Nazi murders of disabled people are highlighted in TV drama. Does it remind you of something?
The Nazis started by killing disabled people too: and now a TV drama has reminded us all of that fact.
All art is quite useless, according to Oscar Wilde. But sometimes it reflects life – uncomfortably, for some.
That may have been the case today (October 13) with the broadcast of this week’s episode of World on Fire by the BBC.
One of the main themes of the episode was Nazi Germany’s bureaucratic programme to engineer the murder of that nation’s disabled people – most particularly children – in a huge, and hugely immoral, experiment in eugenics (removing elements the government considers to be undesirable from the human gene pool).
In the story, a young German girl is shown to be suffering from epilepsy. Her parents tell an American radio reporter that they do not want this to become known to the authorities, so she researches the reasons – and finds out that parents of children with disabilities receive letters from the government asking them to send their child for “treatment”. If they refuse to do so, a second letter is sent, with explicit reminders of the child’s condition and a repeated request that they be sent for “treatment”. If a third letter becomes necessary, it threatens to remove the parents to a “work camp” nearby if they do not comply.
But the reporter discovers that there is no treatment. The children are murdered and the parents are given a flimsy excuse for the death and an expression of regret.
This treatment of children may be likened to the way the UK’s current Tory government treats all disabled people who rely on state benefits for survival.
Sure, there are surface differences. The German example refers to children and in the UK, adults are affected. And the Nazi government behaved proactively, stating that it was carrying out an initiative about disabled people, while the Tories have been deliberately withdrawing from action, denying the existence of people’s disabilities.
It seems they have learned from the Nazis and have arranged a way of eliminating people with disabilities that gives them plausible deniability. Whenever a news report discusses the death of a person with obvious disabilities whose benefit had been denied or cancelled by the Tories, the Department for Work and Pensions issues a statement to the effect that any death is regrettable but the circumstances are complex and the withdrawal of benefit must not be considered the cause.
More disabled benefit claimants have died in the UK under Tory rule since 2010 than the Germans managed to murder between 1933 and 1945.
The deaths, and denials, continue to this day.
We should welcome the fact that this TV drama has the courage to spotlight their historic precedent. Why are we tolerating a government that has taken a leaf from the Nazi book?
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https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/disability-hate-crime-and-other-crimes-against-disabled-people-prosecution-guidance
But yet it carries on aktion T4 rolling along with out much of a ado. I hope it can at least bring attention to whots happening under Tory rule dearly hope so but newmerous MPs have had stories told to them over the rule of the tories talks in the side rooms of parliament happen but yet nothings doneb
Indeed, Art represents life. Causing death by wilful negligence is at least Manslaughter, if not Murder.
It’s amazing how many people I speak to don’t believe this is happening. They assume that these people would have died anyway because of their condition, so again this denial also happened in Nazi Germany at the time it was happening. Unless it was happening to you personally people just didn’t see it.
That is exactly how Nazi Germany operated. The regime seems to have generally left most people alone at least initially.
I remember reading in the Observer, I think, about a couple who sent their sick child away and then they got a letter saying that it had died of measles or something.
This was rather strange as the child had returned by then. They got involved in some sort of protest and it did have a considerable effect.
By the way, just to clarify, this was in Nazi Germany.
we do not realise how fragile Democracy is
Is it really true that the Nazis killed more disabled than those who have died under Tory rule since 2010. It’s a very bold statement so please can we have some corroboration?
Other way around – more deaths under the Tories than the Nazis.
Sorry that is what I meant to say but where can the figures be found to verify it?
I’ve mentioned them myself a few times – here, for instance: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/09/28/this-ignorant-tory-councillor-had-better-try-justifying-the-deaths-his-party-has-caused/
The fact is that this government now is as close to Nazi principles as any we have had. They are class war warriors who look down on people not in their sphere and believe the working people to be a lesser human being. I truly believe many of them would have been quite happy in Hitlers regime.