We must not forget the disabled lost in the Holocaust
By the end of World War II, more than 250,000 people with disabilities were murdered.
By JOSH ARONSONCHILD SURVIVORS on the day of their liberation from Auschwitz (Seventh and eighth from left Marta Wise and her sister Eva Slonim) (photo credit: YAD VASHEM)
If I lived during the Holocaust, I would have been murdered twice. Once because I'm a Jew, and once because I have a disability.Not long ago, DSM, the American Psychiatric Diagnostics book, took out the name of my syndrome, Asperger's. The researcher who discovered it, a Viennese pediatrician by the name of Hans Asperger, sent his patients to institutions where they were executed. Discussions are now underway to change the name of the syndrome.By the end of World War II, more than 250,000 people with disabilities were murdered. The number was supposed to be much higher, but Hitler feared a protest against the execution of disabled people who were wounded in World War I, so he gave orders to stop the killing.Auschwitz has a room where the prosthetics of the murdered disabled are kept. Johnny Daniel, an Israeli who runs the from the depth Association, which is dedicated to preserving the memory of those who perished, told me that he once accompanied on a tour to aushwitz an American senator. Whose heart broke when he saw this room, Johnny recounted. It turned out that the same senator had a child with a disability.A few years ago, I ran into an antisemitic demonstration in the UK. One of the protesters stood there with his son, who was in a wheelchair, holding a sign that read "I wish Hitler would finish his job." I did not hold back and shouted at him: "Stupid, Hitler would kill your child."To me, as a person with a disability and as a grandchild to Holocaust survivors, it is important that people in Israel and around the world recognize the holocaust of people with disabilities. Prince Charles once said in an international forum that those who were murdered should not be forgotten just because they were different. We must emphasize this also in ours: Equality is not only about accepting the difference, it is also remembering who died only because it was different.So I, as a person with a disability, call on all the heads of state and the Yad Vashem people: Find a way to commemorate the people with disabilities killed, remember the different.
