I mentioned last year that work had begun on a memorial in Germany for the 300,000 people murdered by the Nazis for having mental and physical disabilities or chronic illnesses.
That memorial finally opened last week in Berlin.
“The Nazi murders of disabled people are among the most inhumane acts of history,” said Mayor Klaus Wowereit. “It is high time that these victims of Nazi inhumanity finally receive their own memorial.”
Mayor Wowereit was joined by relatives of victims and members of the public who all lay wreaths and white roses in front of the 100-foot-long, blue glass wall of the open-air memorial and permanent exhibition.
“We must denounce the inhumane distinction between a worthy and an unworthy life,” said Monika Gruetters, Germany’s state minister for culture and media. “Every human life is valuable – that’s the message of this memorial.”
As I said before, this is the part of the holocaust that people need much more education on. I’ll never forget being told by someone that he thought only Jews were exterminated in the holocaust!
What perhaps needs to be understand above all is that the Nazis were actually inspired by a pre-existing eugenics movement that advocated the destruction of Life Unworthy of Life. A movement propagated, not by Hitler, but by high-profile German intellectuals and other “medical professionals.”
This is why statements like the ones recently made by humanist and darling of the intellectual community Richard Dawkins about the “morality” of killing unborn children with Down syndrome should not be taken lightly.
Unfortunately, Dawkins is not alone. Much of the West, it seems, has failed to learn from history and continues to accept that there is such a thing as unlivable, unworthy life. And it’s not limited to just some lofty intellectual idea.
His comments may have been crass, but Dawkins was correct about one thing, the majority of children prenatally diagnosed with Ds ARE currently being killed in the womb. But that’s not all. In the Netherlands, doctors kill babies with serious or terminal disabilities after they’re born.
Also on the rise in the Netherlands, as well as in Belgium, is euthanasia for people with serious physical and mental illnesses. And the so-called “right to die” is slowly spreading to other countries, including the United States.
Right to Die? Watch Out. Another Forgotten Holocaust Fact
What short memories we have!
Once upon a time physicians and medical professionals — believers and non-believers alike — swore an oath to recognize and uphold the dignity of their patients and “never do harm” or administer deadly medicine to anyone – even when asked. Now, not only do we not require such an oath to be taken anymore, but for those who do take it we’ve changed it into something more politically than medically correct.
Any reference to never administering deadly medicine has been removed and replaced with a vague pledge to “tread with care in matters of life and death.”
A physician’s job is to heal, not kill. Death is never medicine, no matter how permanent the diagnosis or how much pain the patient is in. We may not be directly headed toward mass murder of the kind that happened in Germany in the early half of the 20th century, but we’re still in for a world of trouble once we start making death an acceptable “treatment” for pain and suffering.
15 Comments on “Nazi Euthanasia Victims Remembered”
Well done tying Dawkins into the eugenics movement.
On Twitter, he denied that his attitude was eugenic on technical grounds, because Down syndrome can never be eliminated from the gene pool since it occurs spontaneously, and can’t be inherited in most cases. There fore in his warped mindset abortion of those babies cannot be considered eugenic. I wonder if he fools anyone with that malarkey?
A powerful and timely reminder of the value of all life, from conception to natural death. God bless
I would have been one sent off to death as I have had severe RA since a teenager. I have always felt the need to work harder than anyone else at work, and continue to do so even when recovering from major surgery.
True, but everything is not reduced to ‘Nazism’ (a pejorative invented by the Communists). In Mein Kampf Hitler promoted eugenics, but did not lay out the plans for what happened later; one can only conclude that, once in power, as he and his ministers attempted to reinvigorate German society they fell to the temptation to actively exterminate the weaker rather than enshrine the goodness of health and vigor peacefully. However, I do not recall that similar programs arose independently in other racialist/fascistic states of Europe at the time, suggesting National Socialism needn’t have gone the way it did in staying faithful to its mission of reviving Germany and liberating Europe from Jewish finance.
Today, it must surely be admitted, bashing the NSDAP has little effect other than smearing contemporary nationalists, who are just about the only people in most of Europe to oppose the Abortion Holocaust (take the UK, where Lib/Lab/Con are all pro-abortion, but the BNP and NF are pro-life).
This started in the United States first. Look into it and publish another article about THAT. Do your research.
This is a great article. We must remember these victims of the Holocaust in prayer, and we must fight the, Culture of Death, because it leads to perdition.
beware history can and will repeat its self if we let it
I have a adult son who has Down Syndrome and is deaf – deafness due to a doctor’s oversight and refusing to check his hearing as an infant when I requested an impedance test.
Over the years, my son has been my strength and joy. He gives such unconditional love as perfect as humanly possible. Because of him I have learned to grow spiritually and humanly beyond what I would have been without him. I owe him so much. He is my gift from God. I have two younger children (brother and sister to Adrien who are adults), who, over the years, have learned with some struggles, the special gift their brother gives to all by being who he is. I am so grateful.
God bless.
I just stumbled across your site via a New Advent link. Very good commentary as to the Nazis. They are the inevitable outcome of scientific atheistic “progress” which includes genetics…survival of the strongest and death to the weakest.
I must say, in all of your photos, you are a strikingly beautiful girl and I would think you should have many suitors. If I were younger than my ancient 54, I would certainly be in that line, for sure. You also appear to be blessed with a family of means, and I am sure you give thanks for that.
I do not do much internet, unsuprising for a guy who swore off inane/insane/obscene tv 15 yrs ago, I do much reading (books never need a power source and last generations) and praying and blue collar work and spend rest of time and money on my parish. But prayer is the center.
This note is actually only in response to your photo with Father Groeschel. If prayer is your center, too, as it should be for everyone as love is the fountain of all virtues and strength in life, I wanted to suggest several true classics for you.
First would be the very small “Common Mystic Prayer” by Father Gabriel Diefenbach, OFM Cap. Superb little book and a bibliography which is a goldmine of older texts on internal prayer and every one far more systematic than modern writings normally are.
From that same book are recommended Father John Chapman, OSB “Spiritual Letters” collected after his passing.
The monumental 1637 “Holy Wisdom” by Father Augustine Baker is considered by Diefenbach the best book in English ever written on the spiritual life but be warned it is very tough sledding in archaic English, but exceedingly systematic/how-to…available free download at http://www.archive.org
Baker recommends a favorite of mine since I was a teenager, “The Cloud of Unknowing” by an anonymous spiritual director in the 1200s, written in middle English with text online available through Univ of Rochester, an archaic but good translation by Underhill available through archive.org, a good modern translation by Father William Johnston, SJ (most work done by Carmelite nuns), and very/too modern version by Carmen Bucher but with excellent notes. It is a wonderful guide to internal contemplative prayer. PLEASE do NOT read any of the translators intros, they all have various axes to grind and not all care a bit about orthodoxy, there even is at least one new-age translation I have found, probably the worst of the lot. The original text is easily compared if you have doubts but I find no real fault with any I mentioned, only with the intros…..simply let the author speak for himself and the letters are as addressed directly to you and quite charming and witty.
Also Walter Hilton’s “Scale/Ladder of Perfection” is a classic in English (middle) as well, many fine translations out there and original text also available at Rochester.
God bless you richly with an internal life and never forget Jesus called us to spiritual perfection…be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect was not hyperbole and we are all called to be saints HERE for the salvation of all, and to get as close as possible to that as we possibly can, so long as we can draw a breath. And it all is so simple….love….he loved us first and we love him in return with all our heart, soul and strength…
Lance
PS….forgot to add at first submission that this was (obviously) more of a personal note than any interbabble posted commentary for commenting upon for commentary subsequent upon commentator drawing even more comment etc etc etc…
“We may not be directly headed toward mass murder of the kind that happened in Germany in the early half of the 20th century…”
In the United States alone, it is estimated that 6% of the 1.1 million abortions are due to birth defects. That’s 66,000 euthanized children every year.
There have been over 1.3 billion abortions worldwide in the last 35 years. If they are done for suspected birth defects at that same 6% rate, then 81 MILLION children have been euthanized over 35 years for being ‘not worth living’. That’s 2.3 million every year.
Compare that to the 300,000 handicapped people killed by the Nazis over, what, 5 years…that’s 60,000 per year.
It’s time to realize that what we are doing dwarfs the inhumanity of Nazi Germany. Saddest of all, we are completely innured to it.
And why did the author of this piece not mention that Dawkins is first and foremost an ATHEIST? Could that fact about him kind of help explain his complete cluelessness about his advocacy of euthanasia? I think so. How about Professor Peter Singer @ Princeton? He teaches now that rats have more value than unborn humans. In fact, the world is DRENCHED in lethal attitudes about weak and defenseless human life, born and unborn, and the situation gets worse and worse with each passing week, it seems. Now an article in Breitbart News tells us that organized satanism is planning to open 15 or more satanic “temples” within the U.S. and overseas in the very near future. Combine that with the ISIS bunch who want to drown us in our own blood, and the future seems not too rosy. And where are our parish Priests warning us about all this terrible stuff? Too many are silent in the face of evil. Sorry to be such a purveyor of “negativism,” but facts are facts. Most Holy Virgin Mary, please pray for us in our hour of need.
this is very important information. in this day when we hear about euthanasia and abortion of disabled children, people don’t realize the slippery slope we are on!
“If my son is murdered, woe!”
I will never forget the day I found that sentence in a letter from the German dad of a mentally ill son to the Reich Minister of Justice, when the hospitals were killing off the handicapped. I found it in the transcripts of the Nuremberg trials, specifically the “Medical Case.”
And you are right, that set of mind is still here and fashionable again.
Until we realize the truth of this article, no matter how inconvienient the message is, we will not rise above our sins.
You are correct, Jeff. And I actually HAVE mentioned that in a previous post before. See: Holocaust Lessons Not Learned