Inclusion Daily Express -- Groups Partner With Holocaust Center For Nation's First Disability Holocaust Memorial

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Groups Partner With Holocaust Center For Nation's First Disability Holocaust Memorial
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
April 25, 2008

NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND--After two years of working together, disability groups in Nottingham are ready to unveil the United Kingdom's first sculpture to remember the nearly one million Europeans with disabilities that were murdered or sterilized during the Nazi regime in the last century.

Members of the Nottinghamshire Disabled People's Movement and the Pioneers Young Disabled People's Forum formed a partnership with the Holocaust Centre in Laxton to draw attention to this history, which members say is not well known and poorly represented.

"We have worked with a group of people, some of whom are disabled and some who are not disabled, to put this together to remember those who suffered," John Geoghegan told the Mansfield Chad.

The "Disability and the Holocaust: We Shall Not Forget" event is set to take place on May 11th at the Centre. There is no cost to the public.

Soon after Adolf Hitler became leader of Germany in 1933, his Nazis moved quickly to "purify" the nation by murdering or sterilizing those considered "inferior members of the Aryan race". Most of those targeted at first under Hitler's secret "Operation T4" were German children with intellectual and physical disabilities who did not fit his ideal of perfection.

Over the next twelve years, an estimated 275,000 Europeans with disabilities were killed and another 400,000 were sterilized under Nazi law.

The Nottingham event is also intended to draw a link between Nazi practices to get rid of people labeled "useless eaters" and the current debates over genetic testing, euthanasia, and the rights of people that have disabilities.

Related:
"Disability and the Holocaust - We Shall Not Forget" (Nottinghamshire Disabled People’s Movement)
"Handicapped" (Holocaust Teacher's Resource Center)
"Hitler's Unwanted Children" by Sally M. Rogow

Copyright © 2008 Inonit Publishing
Please do not reprint, forward, or post without permission.

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