Deaf People in Hitler's Europe

by Ryan, Donna F.; Schuchman, John S.; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

• ISBN13: 9781563681264
• ISBN10: 1563681269
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-12-06
• Publisher: Gallaudet Univ Pr

Summary

Inspired by the conference "Deaf People in Hitler's Europe, 19331945," hosted jointly by Gallaudet University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1998, this extraordinary collection, organized into three parts, integrates key presentations and important postconference research. Henry Friedlander begins "Part I: Racial Hygiene" by analyzing the assault on deaf people and people with disabilities as an integral element in the Nazi attempt to implement their theories of racial hygiene. Robert Proctor documents the role of medical professionals in deciding who should be sterilized or forbidden to marry, and whom the Nazi authorities would murder. In an essay written especially for this volume, Patricia Heberer details how Nazi manipulation of eugenics theory and practice facilitated the justification for the murder of those considered socially undesirable. "Part II: The German Experience" commences with Jochen Muhs's interviews of deaf Berliners who lived under Nazi rule, both those who suffered abuse and those who, as members of the Nazi Party, persecuted others, especially deaf Jews. John S. Schuchman describes the remarkable 1932 film Misjudged People, which so successfully portrayed the German deaf community as a vibrant contributor to society that the Nazis banned its showing when they came to power. Horst Biesold's contribution confirms the complicity of teachers who denounced their own students, labeling them hereditarily deaf and thus exposing them to compulsory sterilization. The section also includes the reprint of a chilling 1934 article entitled "The Place of the School for the Deaf in the New Reich," in which author Kurt Lietz rued the expense of educating deaf students, who could not become soldiers or bear "healthy children." In "Part III: The Jewish Deaf Experience," John S. Schuchman discusses the plight of deaf Jews in Hungary. His historical analysis is complemented by a chapter containing excerpts from the testimony of six deaf Jewish survivors who describe their personal ordeals. Peter Black's reflections on the need for more research conclude this vital study of a little-known chapter of the Holocaust.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(10)
Part I Racial Hygiene
Introduction	11	(4)
Holocaust Studies and the Deaf Community	15	(17)
Henry Friedlander
Eugenics in Hitler's Germany	32	(17)
Robert N. Proctor
Targeting the ``Unfit'' and Radical Public Health Strategies in Nazi Germany	49	(29)
Patricia Heberer
Part II The German Experience
Introduction	73	(5)
Deaf People as Eyewitnesses of National Socialism	78	(20)
Jochen Muhs
Robert Harmon
Misjudged People: The German Deaf Community in 1932	98	(16)
John S. Schuchman
The Place of the School for the Deaf in the New Reich	114	(7)
Kurt Lietz
Tobias Brill
Teacher-Collaborators	121	(48)
Horst Biesold
William Sayers
Part III The Jewish Deaf Exxperience
Introduction	167	(2)
Hungarian Deaf Jews and the Holocaust	169	(33)
John S. Schuchman
Deaf Survivors' Testimony: An Edited Transcript	202	(13)
John S. Schuchman
Donna F. Ryan
Part IV Concluding Thoughts
A Call for More Research	215	(10)
Peter Black
Index	225