Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day. I'm afraid we're heading that way again.

[garlicblocks]

"It is estimated that close to 250,000 disabled people were murdered under the Nazi regime. Persecution of people with disabilities began in 1933, but mass murder commenced in 1939.

"The organised killing of disabled children began in August 1939 ... All children under the age of three who were suffering from conditions such as Down?s syndrome, hydrocephaly, cerebral palsy or ?suspected idiocy?, were targeted. A panel of medical experts were required to give their approval for the ?euthanasia? of each child. In the first few months of the program this was usually achieved either by lethal injection or by starving the child to death. Many parents were unaware of the fate of their children, instead being told that they were being sent for improved care.

"The first experimental gassings took place at the killing centre in Brandenberg and thousands of disabled patients were killed in gas chambers disguised as shower rooms. Now that a fast and effective method of mass-murder had been developed it could of course be used to exterminate gays, Gypsies, political opponents and of course over six million Jews.

"Worryingly, in 2012 in Great Britain, Geoffrey Clark, a local government candidate for the UK Independence Party in a by-election in Gravesham, Kent posted this on his website:

"Consider compulsory abortion when the foetus is detected as having Downs, Spina Bifida or similar syndrome which, if it is born, will render the child a burden on the state as well as on the family."

"Although UKIP suspended Clark?s party membership when this hit the news, it was too late to cancel his candidacy. He came second to the conservatives with almost 27% of the vote."

What can we do about escalating persecution of the disabled and otherwise 'unproductive' people in the UK? Are we heading back towards forced sterilisation and murder?

And yet Harriet says we are nowhere near the same thinking that led to the holocaust.

Hoist by your own petard eh Harriet.

What does this pill have to do with the holocaust? Is it really a suicide pill or something and I've missed the point entirely?

FFS Harriet they used disabled people for testing all sorts of drugs on during the war.
Do you not even realise how fucking offensive you are being. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

I don't think I am being offensive. I assumed you were talking about a theoritical pill that would cure disabilities, because that is what you said. If you had meant "testing all sorts of drugs" then that is what you should have said!

Nazi human experimentations were a series of medical experiments on large numbers of prisoners, mainly Jews (including Jewish children) from across Europe, but also in some cases Roma, Soviet POWs and disabled non-Jewish Germans, by the Nazi German regime in its concentration camps mainly in the early 1940s, during World War II and the Holocaust. Prisoners were coerced into participating; they did not willingly volunteer and there was never informed consent. Typically, the experiments resulted in death, disfigurement or permanent disability, and as such are considered as examples of medical torture. At Auschwitz and other camps, under the direction of Dr. Eduard Wirths, selected inmates were subjected to various hazardous experiments which were designed to help German military personnel in combat situations, develop new weapons, aid in the recovery of military personnel that had been injured, and to advance the racial ideology backed by the Third Reich.[1] Dr. Aribert Heim conducted similar medical experiments at Mauthausen. Carl Værnet is known to have conducted experiments on homosexual prisoners in attempts to cure homosexuality. After the war, these crimes were tried at what became known as the Doctors' Trial, and revulsion at the abuses perpetrated led to the development of the Nuremberg Code of medical ethics.

Harriet this is your statement saying people should be pressured into taking that pill.

2nd question: If a pill or an injection were developed that cured all disabilities of all kinds, what would you think about those people who refused to have it. Would they be selfish, or lazy, deluded even. if they decided to stay impaired would you feel it reasonable to say "Right then you had your chance you could have been like the majority, you could have had all the advantages of being able bodied but you have chosen to stay as you are, so thats your choice but you having made that choice forfeit all help in every form from the state. No housing, no benefit apart from the standard, no mobility cars, no blue badges" You want to be disabled then you get on with it."

And from the Wiki page i pulled it from.

Prisoners were coerced into participating; they did not willingly volunteer and there was never informed consent.

And you really see no similarities Harriet.!
You know whats really fucking scary. A LOT of people think like you.
GOD HELP US.

Full page. Its harrowing reading.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation

So what are you going to do about it?

Is that to me or H.

If you actually read the thread then you'd see that people aren't saying that a holocaust is actually going to happen, but that other events that preceded it (eg. the propaganda and shift in public attitudes) either are happening or seem to be on the horizon.

One of those things that the Nazis did was push the idea of the disabled being a burden and that disabled people were lesser than able bodied people. By their logic, "why would anyone choose to be disabled?". Sound familiar?

So from this utterly logical standpoint, and as there was no magical pill to cure the disabled and make them useful eaters rather than useless eaters, what could they do?

So they started with sterilisation so faulty genes couldn't be passed down, originally voluntary.

Logical right? Save disabled people from ever suffering their disability or costing the state money?

Of course there were still disabled people alive who they hadn't managed to prevent being born.

Well they could give the people the option to stop being disabled for good? Ah yes, that makes sense, free them from the torment of their disability. What a lovely thing to do. So voluntarily people ended their lives.

Hmm, still disabled people around. What could they try next? Coerced euthanasia for the "good of the fatherland". They even had films made to let everyone know how glorious it was to give up your life for the sake of the country.

But what about the ones who didn't want to die? Who thought that their disability, while not ideal, was a part of them that needed to be accepted? Well, by this point the general public had seen all these brave people accepting sterilisation and euthanasia in order that the able bodied would have more money in those dire financial times, when everyone was struggling. Doesn't it look a little bit selfish of these disabled people to take money from the able bodied and not give back? Isn't it a bit illogical to want to remain disabled when not being disabled would help others? I mean, it means dying, but what kind of life do they have anyway? Maybe if they aren't going to think clearly then someone else should decide for them....

Harriet seems to possess the same logic mentioned in your post Goths.

You don't seem to be willing to debate the subject, so I will leave it at that.

The thing to remember is, the Nazis didn't become powerful because the German public were evil and bloodthirsty.

They became powerful because the public were vulnerable.

They were suffering, their economy was fucked. There were few jobs. Living was unaffordable. And when they were told that their lives could be hugely improved if the people who weren't paying into the pot stopped getting paid from the pot, well it made perfect sense to them. Especially if it was explained to them that those not paying in were doing so because they were lazy and greedy. Rather than vulnerable and struggling.

Their response was understandable, but it was lethal.

Harriet, I've decided to explain this to you because I can see why you don't get it, and that others might be too cross to explain. I hope people will put me right if I explain poorly.

I would take the magic pill. This is because my disability is caused by illness; it's something that's happened to me - a bad thing, a lessening of myself. I imagine most people who've been disabled by accidents would feel the same.

My disability is not part of who I am; it's an unwanted extra. For someone whose disability is part of who they've always been, asking them to take the pill would be like asking me to take something that would make me shorter, or less creative, or better at tennis but worse at languages - do you see? I wouldn't want to take a pill just to be more like everyone else, because it would make me less 'me'.

By assuming that all disabled people want to take the pill, you have automatically judged them not good enough. Your base assumption is that they - their very self - is inferior. And that they feel inferior, wishing there were a pill to make them more like you.

That means you consider them sub-standard human beings. I'm sure you didn't realise this, but perhaps you can see how this very assumption, that they're substandard and know it, can lead to atrocities.

Catching up on your posts, Goths - powerful stuff.

Great post Garlic. And Goths your post has summed up the similarities well.
Garlic you are right. I am cross.

MurderofGoths - I was going to post something similar but you beat me to it and put it better.

One small crumb of comfort to me is that we don't have intellectuals like George Bernard Shaw, etc. supporting eugenics. We do still have people around who were alive during that time, who can speak from first hand experience about how it all started. There are people like us who are saying 'don't forget history'. I've got a number of elderly Jewish friends who had to flee the nazis. I have no reason to doubt what they tell me. A recently deceased elderly friend was in Holland during the war - I can't repeat her stories but I knew her to be a woman of integrity, so I am 100% sure what she told me was true.

And Darkest, too. I need to go back to bed!

garlic Thank you for that, you put into words what I couldn't.

FWIW I'm with you, I'd take the pill in a heartbeat. Because I remember a time before. But if it's all you've ever known? Much less clear cut. Some might, some might not. Just because a disability makes life hard it doesn't mean someone would part with it.

Not quite the same but, I'm a shortarse, I was bullied for it. My life was a misery. But even back then, if you'd asked me to take a pill to change it not only would I not want it, I'd also feel like you'd decided my height made me "abnormal", "unnatural" and less of a person.

While there is logic in it wrt disability, it is a logic that is too black and white. Disabled people are just as valuable to society, even if their contribution isn't financial.

Also Harriet can I apologise for swearing at you? I'm in a bit of a fragile state this evening and let it get the better of me. I wasn't debating I was just being a twat.

My FIL passed away eleven years ago. He came from Warsaw.
He always flatly refused to discuss the war. It upset him too much. He used to get panic attacks when he saw police officers because of the uniform and he didnt trust them.

It wasnt until a few years after he died that DH went through some old papers of his.
He found some papers and cards and an ID card with French Resistance on them.
I think my FIL probably did some brave things but because he refused to talk about it we will never know what.
But seeing anyone in uniform like the police would frighten him and he didnt trust him.
We do know he lost family members.
That and his fear of uniforms is just one legacy of those atrocities.

DH is a lot older than me. Thats why my FIL was older than most of the in laws of MNers. FIL was roughly 80 when he died.

sorry but every genocide is as bad as last

yes it was holocaust remembrance day ..........but about all the recent holcausts

Rwanda, Bosnair, daifir............maybe even now Malia

What about all the Christians were killed under hitlers rule

thousands of every race creed and religion died in both world wars.

The NAZi's were not very nice nice but the Jewish were not the only victims