Euthanasia And The Holocaust

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Generally discussions about the Holocaust begin and end with a narrative surrounding the Jewish population. This is not a whole and complete account of all of the groups and people that were affected by the event. Many times this leads to an incomplete reflections on the atrocities during the Second World War. There were many segments of the population that were also targeted in an attempt to enact the moral, political, and ethnic policies of Hitler and the Nazi party. The Nazi euthanasia program is often forgotten about, but in many ways was an example of the build up to the death camps that would be used in the second half of the war. Starting with the T4 program, children with mental and/or physical disabilities were sent to these remote locations under the guise of receiving education, training, or medical care. When there, they would instead be killed, either through gassing or starvation. After death their bodies would be cremated, leaving no evidence of the mode of death. When it became known that these programs were infact euthanizing rather than helping, a public outcry led to changes. The T4 program publicly stated that they would fix the issue, but instead became more secretive in the killing process, turning mainly to lethal …show more content…
In similar fashion to the Jewish population, these people will seen as a threat to the “pure” blooded Germanic peoples. A special office was created in the attempt to find homosexual people following the change in Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code in 1935. Interestly engough, unlike homosexullity in men, lesibianism was seen as a temporary condition, something that could be changed and treated. Many times these women were put through a school of decoration that would “fix” their sexual orientation. Though some lesbians did find themselves in the camps, it is estimated that their were larger numbers of gay men than that of

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