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

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"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?

'Despite the prevalence of social media few of us really know about the cuts that are happening to disability benefits.' LaVulcan

this

People don't WANT to know, it's uncomfortable, it's scary & it challenges the false security people build their lives on. They don't want to be told they are only a month away from a disabled life. It's easier to blame the disabled people themselves, make them into the fat, ugly, lazy, skivving 'other'.

I have become disabled & it makes me SICK the way people treat me. Half the time I am treated like a disgusting, stupid, less than human THING, the other half I am allowed to be disabled as I am the DESERVING disabled as I was a fully functioning 'normal' person paging higher rate taxes before I became ill. Both attitudes stick in my craw. And it's only going to get worse as long as the recession is biting.

By comparing what is happening now to the Holocaust, we are not conflating it. A comparison is just that. This is how it happened, people denying what was happening, a willing media, (Sun, Mail) a government not connected to the people.
The Holocaust was the most disgusting shameful thing to have happened in the history of the earth, which is why some of you can't accept what others are saying. But my god, it's so, so easy to slip back there when you are making accusations of others belittling the history of others. It is nobodys intention to do so. But take note. People are already dying, I've said this earlier. People are dying, disabled people with serious heart conditions, learning disabilities, multiple sclerosis and terminal cancer are being found fit for work.
My children, fortunately don't understand. My dh, a one time philosophy lecturer understands only too well. He is terrified.

How were disabled people in THIS country treated in the 1940s?

The first Remploy factories opened in the 1940s here. Unfortunately the end of the war conincided with a mass polio outbreak, so as well as war veterans there were significant numbers of young people with disabilities too.
Schools were opened and some schools accepted students with disabilities. So it was the slow start of integration.

The Holocaust was the most disgusting shameful thing to have happened in the history of the earth, which is why some of you can't accept what others are saying.

Do you say this because of the sheer numbers involved? Otherwise there have been many disgusting and shameful acts throughout history. What particularly disturbs me in this case is that Germany was a highly educated or civilised society which degenerated into barbarism. If it could happen to them, then I believe it could happen to us all.

How did we tread disabled people in the 1940s? As far as I know we didn't kill them, but many proponents of euthanasia were British - George Bernard Shaw springs to mind. Not that it's wrong per se to want a healthy population - but providing optimal diet and living conditions would be one way forward. Killing the weak to my mind is evil.

Dawn is completely right, people ARE ALREADY DYING. Unpalatable, but true.

Btw in the 1940s we may not of gone out of our way to kill the disabled, but we weren't exactly helping them live either.

Soldiers with spinal injuries were transported back to the uk in open boxes... Coffins. The focus was on locking them away & at best easing their pain til death from untreated complications or horrific bed sores. And these were our war heroes, so goodness knows what happens to the general population of people & children with disabilities.

When I was at secondary school we used to do coffee mornings & befriending schemes for the local 'mental institution'. We were told that a large number of the people who loved there didn't have any mental illness but had been sent there as children as they had things like epilepsy. They were all 60+ when I was there & the place had stopped accepting new 'patients many years before, they just looked after the poor people shut in & so institutionalized they never had a chance to be who they really were.

Harriet asked "How were disabled people in THIS country treated in the 1940s?"

Surprisingly well, compared to earlier decades.

My mum (Kathy) and dad (Charlie) were born in 1906 and 1912 respectively,and both caught polio when they were toddlers. Dad was considered unemployable when he left school (so at the age of 14 he peddled sweets from a wheelchair outside the local grammar school) until 1940 when he was conscripted into the labour force at the age of 34 to make parts for Wellington bombers. He was never unemployed again.

Here's Kathy's story:

"Kathy was a talented needlewoman. She left school at fourteen (in 1926) and worked as tailoress until she married. Her first job lasted one year, so did her second job and then her third job. When she was sacked for the third time she asked her employer why she was being dismissed, and she was told that the boss had found out that because of her disability, the employer would have to pay extra national insurance contributions, backdated. They couldn?t afford to pay that. Somebody else could do the job more cheaply. She had to go. She therefore came to an arrangement that she would re-imburse the firm for the extra national insurance stamp. She did this for ten years until the start of World War II, and she recorded all the payments she made in a series of notebooks. In 1938 she attended one of the first meetings of what became the British Polio Fellowship, a self-help organisation for people with her disability. A few years later the Polio Fellowship submitted these notebooks as evidence to the Beveridge Commission, and the national insurance rules were changed."

The Beveridge report created the National health Service in 1948. This meant that Kathy and Charlie no longer had to buy wheelchairs, crutches and leg-irons out of their own meagre financial resources. It meant that they could marry and raise a family - without it I would never have been born.

I am the author of "Live Eels and Grand Pianos" - the story of Kathy's and Charlie's' remarkable lives. Read more about it at www.andrewbradfordauthor.com

DoubleLife - you talk about people in mental institutions. My parents used to go and visit a neighbour who went into a Home when she got Alzheimer's. One of her fellow residents was a lady who had been in a mental hospital and once they were closed down she was too institutionalised to live in the community. She had been sent to the mental hospital (some time before the war) because she had had a child out of wedlock. At least some things have improved since those days.

I think the treatment of people with disabilities varied.

Two of the Queen's cousins had learning disabilities and were in an institution near to where I live. One of them may still alive.

I believe Katherine Bowes-Lyon is still alive. Her sister Nerissa died a while ago.

They were institutionalised long before the 40s though, born in the 20s.

Thing is disability always has a cost. The reason care was moved to the community was the huge cost to the NHS of keeping people in institutions.

So, Carers save this country £118 billion a year, yet our benefits are still being cut, despite us saving the country money. We're scrounging scum, I know that after being awake all night with one of the kids my blinds have been down during the day gasp

I fail to see why disabled people are being demonised in the way they are now, or their Carers.

I fail to see why disabled people are being demonised in the way they are now, or their Carers.

I know that someone will object when I say this - but with David Cameron having had a severely disabled son, one might expect him to champion the disabled more.

It's a damning reflection on our society that we are making the disabled pay for the current economic woes.

Unless bus loads of the disabled are being secretly wheeled off and gassed - then I still say that comparisons to the holocaust are ridiculous and like something you'd expect to hear in sixth form common room debate.

No you're not allowed to say that, La V

Nancy66 - No one is saying that this is happening now, but what some of us are saying is that it could be the start of the slippery slope. I hope to God not, I hope we do learn some lessons from history.

I am of the opinion that the conservatives do have a tendancy to come across as pro-eugenic; thinly disguised by their disgusting financial policies.

Comparing how the disabled are treated in this country to the holocaust cheapens both. You may have valid points to make but you should be able to do so without resorting to trying to shock with reference to the holocaust. The Rwandan genocide is comparable to the holocaust, this is not. Especially distasteful given that holocaust memorial day was yesterday.

"Unless bus loads of the disabled are being secretly wheeled off and gassed - then I still say that comparisons to the holocaust are ridiculous and like something you'd expect to hear in sixth form common room debate."

I kind of agree, but think comparisons to early National Socialism are worryingly appropriate. Unfortunately most debates I've seen on it tend to end up with people saying that until the disabled are being gassed then it's overreacting, spectacularly missing the point about it being in increments.

What similarities are there to how Nazi Germany treated the disabled prior to the holocaust? Sorry but I just don't see it. Benefits are being cut a bit, but that's all. Being given a little less money and being a little bit more stringent about who gets it does not equal persecution IMO.

Spectacularly missing the point about increments???

This is quite astonishing. The 'increments' in nazi Germany weren't so incremental compared to what we are talking about in the uk, they were huge jumps. The Nuremberg laws were passed already back in 1933. That was an increment in nazi Germany. Not cutting benefits in a democratic society ffs. You don't like it, you have the right to protest, you have mps, you can vote to change govt. Appalling that anyone thinks this is remotely like nazi Germany, you have no idea.

Oops, sorry, meant 1935

you have the right to protest, you have mps, you can vote to change govt.

So did Germans. They used those rights, very energetically. The NSDAP was never given a full mandate by the electorate - the vote was hung; Hitler got in on a coalition. From there he used bribery, blackmail and extreme force to take full control, outlaw other parties and banish elections.

Now I am not saying Mr Cameron is a reincarnation of Mr Hitler. What I am saying is that a sense of "it couldn't happen here", coupled with economic anxiety and a willingness to scapegoat some sectors of society, led to the German people overlooking early abuses in a very similar manner to what's happening now.

Here's that link to Useless Eaters again.
Here is the full text (pdf).

Here's one of many links propaganda (advertisements) then and now.

The black triangle used to designate sick & disabled people in the concentration camps was for arbeitsscheu - workshy. Ring any bells?

Again, I am not likening Cameron to Hitler. I have no evidence for that.
I am saying we're already ignoring victimisation & scapegoating of a very similar nature to what happened then. And, like pre-war Germans, we're telling ourselves it can't be that bad. Are we going to sit around, not asking too many questions, until things get worse? Sick & disabled people are already dying in ways they did not die five or ten years ago.

The thing is, many disabled people could work, and should be encouraged to . Bleating that "this is how the holocaust started" is so ridiculous. Everyone should contribute, not be feather bedded with lavish benefits,when they are capable of working - even if they've not previously worked for many years. Time to stop soft soaping people.

Andrew, you must be very proud of your Mum's determination, and the fact she influenced Beveridge's welfare system!

Lord Freud sickeningly said Beveridge would be proud of his reforms - before admitting he's never read the Beveridge Report

Double, that story about the soldiers in coffins is shocking.

During my school years, in the 1960s - 1970s, handicapped children were designated ineducable even if their handicaps were only physical. There were tucked away in institutions (where they were, for the most part, sedated) which is mainly why so many of my generation think "you didn't use to see all these disabled around." As others have remarked, a high proportion became institutionalised and are still in care facilities, although they tend to die young. The Warnock Report of 1978 finally got things changed.

Care in the community has been a successful experiment, in terms of both saving money and creating a more realistically balanced society. Carers like PeneloPe are very much to be credited for this, alongside a faulty but ground-breaking social service. As support is systematically eroded, carers won't be able to cope. The logical outcome would be that more disabled children & adults are committed to institutions - this is a much bigger financial burden on society, so funding would need to be cut ... and that leads to ... ?? :(

I'm not pretending to know exactly what it leads to. Some of us are saying there are worrying parallels with what happened in pre-war Germany. And we do know what that led to.

Interesting, plodder, what are you recommendations for getting the sick and disabled into paid employment?

they should be assessed and then made to work or their benefits cut. for example you see many down syndrome people working today, they never useed to , it's to be encouraged and applauded.

Clearly profoundly sick or severly mentally disabled people can't do most jobs, but even here, something menial could probably be found which might give them some self respect and the respect of their community. disabled people should be protected from abuse and exploitation but the assumption should be that they can work unless proved otherwise, and i would set the standard fairly high.