12 May 08 - The suffering of nearly one million Deaf and disabled people persecuted, sterilised or killed by the Nazi regime is rarely the subject of public discussion and has never been commemorated with a memorial in the UK.
That, however, is about to change.
On 11 May, blind Holocaust survivor Hans Cohn was joined by celebrities including disabled artist Alison Lapper (famously sculpted by Marc Quinn for a statue in Trafalgar Square) and actress Kim Tserkezie from CBBC’s ‘Balamory’, together with members of the Nottinghamshire Disabled People’s Movement and other Deaf and disabled people at The Holocaust Centre to remember the disabled victims of the Holocaust. The event saw the unveiling of plans for the UK’s first permanent memorial sculpture to acknowledge this history, which will be created by the Pioneers Young Disabled People’s Forum from Nottinghamshire.
“There is little recognition of the persecution of deaf and disabled people under the Nazis,” says Centre Director Dr Stephen Smith. “While discrimination against those with disability is outlawed in our society, we must work together to counter the prejudice that remains. Hitler’s propaganda minister suffered from Polio, and yet he still drove a media machine that contributed to the persecution of a million Deaf and disabled people. The victims of this brutal campaign should never be forgotten.”
"The disabled suffered doubly under the Nazi regime if they were Jewish," says 85-year-old Hans Cohn, one of the very few blind German Jewish children to have survived the Holocaust by escaping to the UK.
Actress Kim Tserkezie said, “I felt compelled to attend this event. It has always saddened me that disabled people’s experiences of the Holocaust have gone largely untold. We owe it to all those people who were persecuted, forcibly sterilised, or murdered to remember them and pay tribute to them. We must not forget their experiences, which are not only part of our past, but are important in helping us understand the prejudices and discrimination we as disabled people experience today.”
Artist Alison Lapper said, "It's been an amazing day. It opened even my eyes, and I thought I knew a lot about the Holocaust. Disabled people were the first victims of the Holocaust, yet we hardly feature in the history books and are still so often swept aside and forgotten about. I hope that this will open people's eyes and hearts, and really mark the start of a learning process for the future."
The event, entitled ‘Disability and the Holocaust: We Shall Not Forget’, included the dedication of a rose and plaque in the Centre’s memorial rose gardens, as a tribute to the disabled people murdered.
Speeches and debate were led by writer and film director Liz Crow, who is currently working on a drama documentary about the Nazi T4 Euthanasia programme in which up to 270,000 disabled people were murdered by the Nazis. The architects of the programme, which saw the establishment of six major killing centres for the disabled around Germany, would go on to play a key role in the mass murder of Europe’s Jews.
“I've been very inspired today. It's a hot, sunny, almost summer day, and yet people have travelled from all over the country - from Scotland, from the south coast, even from Paris - to take part in this event,” says Chief Executive Dr James Smith. “The World has moved on very positively in the past 60 years since the Holocaust, but in many ways the lessons are still there to be learned, there is still a huge amount of work to do, and today was one important mark on that journey.”
