The End of the Asylum: Institutions for the Disabled Between Care and Killing

Aided by medical professionals who subscribed to theories of eugenics, Nazi officials declared persons with perceived or actual mental and/ or physical disabilities as “life unworthy of life” (lebensunwertes Leben). These individuals were targeted for both state-sanctioned and decentralized euthanasia programs, under which an estimated 200,000 perished. Some of the physicians who participated in the official state euthanasia program, known euphemistically as T4, were central to the development of technologies used to murder other groups in concentration and extermination camps.

On June 13, Warren Rosenblum, Professor of History at Webster University, St. Louis, will discuss his research on the history of disability during both the Weimar Republic and Third Reich. He will further explore how Nazi conspiratorial theories about antisemitism and persons with disabilities are linked through fear of the “other."

To register, click here. 

This talk is part of a new lecture series on marginalized victims of Nazi persecution. “Recovering Victims’ Voices: Black, LGBTQI+, Persons with Disabilities, and Roma Communities and the Holocaust” will highlight new and emerging scholarship on often un- or underexplored victims of Nazi persecution. The series demonstrates how historical identity-based hate influences contemporary discourse about race, gender, sexuality, and disabilities.