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Blind Jews in the Third Reich

Gabriel Richter

excerpt

A blind man, with head bandaged, walking through the Belsen concentration camp in Germany after liberation - Alan Moore, 1947
A blind man, with head bandaged, walking through the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany after liberation | painting by Alan Moore, 1947


Interview with a Blind Woman Affected by the Sterilization Law:

I was sterilized on January 23, 1935. It was during Advent, 1934, and we were all sitting in the dining hall, when suddenly I was told to go to the director's office. This was unusual at that time of day. My heart was pounding fiercely, and I kept thinking: "You haven't broken any rules, have you? And you did do all your homework correctly, right?" I was exactly twelve years old, still just a kid. I played and I enjoyed schoolwork; I was happy and mentally up to par. I wasn't exactly enlightened about sexual matters, though. All I knew was that all women and girls menstruate and that babies are not delivered by the stork. So there I was, standing in front of the director.

Director: "Hello. Sit down, please. I have asked you to come and see me because I have something very important to discuss with you. It's this: in the next few days you are to have surgery. But you must not say anything about it to anyone!"

Me: "But why, Sir? After all, I'm not sick, and nothing's hurting me!"

Director: "The surgery is necessary. You don't need to be afraid of it."

Me: "So when am I going into the hospital, and when will I have the surgery?"

Director: "That I cannot tell you exactly. It will be in the next few days."

Me: "But what for? Why?"

Director: "Look here, you've been studying biology in class, right? Surely you must have heard something about nerves and nerve fibers."

Me: "So whereabouts will they do the surgery? On my eyes?"

Director: "No! on your abdomen. The nerve fibers are going from your tummy up into your head and right to the sight center of your brain. Maybe there's a chance you could get some of your vision back after the surgery--not all of it, but perhaps some, at least. And that would be really nice, wouldn't it?"

And that was the end of the discussion. After that I went home for Christmas vacation. My parents said nothing to me at that time about the decision to have me sterilized, although they had been notified of it. The only information they shared with me was that I had to have surgery.

My father did fight the decision, though he didn't say anything about it to me then. As he explained later, he had to go to court. First he asked the judges to postpone the sterilization till I was twenty, but they refused. Then he petitioned the court to wait until I had my period so that he could do a better job of explaining everything to me. Their snap judgment was: "The sooner it's done, the less dangerous it is." I don't blame my father for what happened. Back then, the rationale he gave me for giving his consent went like this: "Look, you're a pretty girl, after all. Perhaps you would like to get married one day. Then it'll be a lot easier for you and a lot better if no children come along." But I myself was profoundly unhappy when I grew bigger and heard that I wouldn't be having any children. And I have been feeling the pain right up to this very day, even though it has decreased somewhat over the years because I didn't find out till later what a big responsibility it is to have and raise a child.

The day of the surgery had come. They brought me to the hospital, a place I had never had to go to before. Even being prepared for surgery scared me terribly. The shock after the operation was every bit as bad; I who had been happy and healthy before was suddenly having dreadful stomach pains. They had made an enormous incision from one hipbone to the other. It was a really difficult and dangerous operation. What can be done today with no trouble at all was dangerous back then. I was determined to get out of bed, but I wasn't allowed to get up even once just to go to the toilet. It took a lot of nurses just to hold me down. I called out over and over again: "I can't see anything at all! Everything's the same as before! Why did you operate on me?"

Whether it was the violent movements I was making or something else that went wrong, by the time I was supposed to get my period, everything inside was all damaged and deformed. I was having a really difficult time, and the cramps were indescribable. I had to have surgery all over again twice. What I had to go through is almost beyond description. In any case, even with all these operations, I never did get my period. I went into a kind of menopause, like a middle-aged woman going through the change. In the end I even had to be treated by a neurologist. It's true that taking hormones helped me somewhat, but even today I still suffer from a lot of health problems.

You have to remember that at the time of the first operation I was still a child, barely twelve when I was sterilized. At fourteen I had to have another operation to correct the position of my uterus, which had fallen and become inflamed, and when I was fifteen, they had to remove my entire uterus and part of my vagina.

Because of the neurological problems and hot flashes which followed the surgeries, I suddenly found my ability to learn and concentrate had become very limited. I just wasn't able to make the grade so I could get into high school, and it was too late to make up what I had missed because the literature I needed wasn't available.

I had been told not to talk about the operations with anyone, but the big girls still managed to get it out of me. The story spread all through the institute like wildfire. I can't begin to tell you how awful it was, being pursued by the boys and even by grown men. After all, I myself wasn't made of wood; on the contrary, because of the fluctuations in my hormones, I was sexually overstimulated much of the time. That got me into situations which brought me nothing but trouble and torment.

Question 3: Do you know anything about the restrictions on marriage in the Third Reich?

Answer: I know what happened to a married couple who are friends of mine. They were faced with tremendous difficulties when they wanted to get married because the husband was suspected of having a genetic defect (he had two blind brothers). The wife was blind too, actually, but her blindness resulted from falling down the stairs. When these two wanted to get married, they had to arrange for a marriage license to be issued by the minister for the Interior, Dr. Frick. Also they had to produce a certificate of fitness for marriage. Finally they did manage to get the marriage license, but only after a blind doctor named Siering, who had some kind of connection with the minister, spoke up for them.

Question 4: Were you able to get together with male peers?

Answer: It used to be that boys and girls could get together for dancing or group games, for example, as long as we were supervised by a chaperon. Suddenly all of that was forbidden. We were punished even if we were seen giving a boy a goodnight handshake or going for a walk in the garden. Anyone who was caught having intimate relations was immediately expelled from school in disgrace.

Question 5: What do you know about the fate of blind Jews?

Answer: I really can't say much of anything about the fate of blind Jews. There weren't any in our school as far as I know. I do know through hearsay that there were a few blind Jews at a different school for the blind, and they are supposed to have been treated pretty well by the nuns there. But I only found out about this second-hand.

Question 6: Were blind people euthanized?

Answer: As far as I know, blind people were not directly at risk if they could practice a profession or were otherwise bright enough to be fully employed. It was only people with mental or other disabilities that went to "X," and their blind friends never heard from them again. The families would receive the news that the blind man or woman had died of some illness or other.

Question 7: What was your employment situation like in the Third Reich?

Answer: I was in the training program to become a telephone operator and shorthand typist. Besides that I had to spend all my free time in the Institute's knitting factory, where we were only allowed to do the most menial jobs. Anyone who got sick even once had to wait till the last minute to see a doctor. If anyone complained of some kind of discomfort, they were simply told, "Oh, that's nothing!" I even know of someone who died. The poor girl looked awfully pale and wasn't feeling well. They hit her and accused her of dusting her face with flour. A few days later the girl was dead.

Question 8: What else happened to you at the Institute?

Answer: We were frequently humiliated and intimidated. If, for example, your stocking had a hole in it or your shoes didn't have a perfect shine or the knot in your tie wasn't perfectly straight, you got punished right there in the dining hall, with all the male and female dormitory staff and school employees sitting round. We always had to submit to these dreadful punishments. We were treated like soldiers in the military, even the girls, and I bitterly resented that.

Question 9: What positive experiences did you have during the Nazi period that you can tell us about?

Answer: The only positive thing was getting to know girls from other schools for the blind and singing with them at the camp sponsored by the League of German Girls. That was really nice. We would do folk dances and sing and enjoy communal activities, and we made friends and had lots of fun playing practical jokes on one another.

Question 10: What did you do after the end of the war in connection with your sterilization?

Answer: I wanted to sue for damages so I could be compensated for all that I had gone through, but I could not get anyone to provide me with the written medical opinion I needed. They said that the damage to my uterus was a birth defect. There was nothing I could do. Whenever I had to get a routine physical, I was always asked, "When did you have your last period?" Each time I had to explain the whole thing. The doctors would get mad and say, "Those criminals!" but if I asked them to give me their opinion in writing, they would distance themselves from me, and nothing was done.

Once when I was hospitalized, it was confirmed beyond any doubt that the damage to my uterus had nothing to do with any birth defect. But in the end, after two attempts to get the required written medical opinion, I lost my courage and didn't do anything more about it.


Letter from a Sterilized Blind Man

In the year 1934 we were each summoned separately to the director's office; none of us knew what this was about. There I was asked by several doctors and party officials how long I had had my eye disease, to which the only answer I could give was: "Since birth." Not long after that I was taken to the courthouse at (name blanked out), where a judge asked me if I would consent to a voluntary sterilization. I said no, of course, so then a form was put in front of me which required my signature. I did not sign it. Don't make me go into any more detail about that court hearing; it's too painful.

A short time later I got a letter from the Superior Court for Genetic Health telling me I had to present myself there. I did not go, which resulted in a party official coming to the school and forcing me to sign, this time in the presence of the director. At that moment the joy went out of my life because I knew what was going to happen to me.

***

The first deportation of German Jews to Poland occurred in the fall of 1939. "Being sent to the East meant nothing less than extermination. Hunger and hard labor were supposed to kill off the Jews; anyone who survived was earmarked for a violent end." They shared this fate with the Jews living in all the German-occupied countries.

A small number of firsthand accounts exist by blind people who either experienced or witnessed the deportation or extermination of blind Jews, and a few documents shed some additional light on the subject. They describe the conditions in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, in which "Jews who were old, disabled, and decorated war veterans" were placed. Because of the "special" status of Theresienstadt there are no actual reports of blind people in the extermination camps.

The first transport from Germany arrived in Theresienstadt on June 2, 1942. The relevant documents confirm the existence of a blind ghetto which was part of the Welfare Unit and was housed in Building Q 319. [...]

By the end of World War II, 139,000 Jews had passed through Theresienstadt. Up to 95 percent of them were deported from there and murdered in the extermination camps.

Between the fall of 1942 and the spring of 1945, 3,200 who were also blind and scheduled for the same end passed through the camp. In September of 1942 about 1,000 blind people were in Theresienstadt; in December of 1943, roughly 600. On October 9, 1942, the Welfare Unit for the Severely Injured and Physically Handicapped was founded. The welfare unit in Theresienstadt housed 565 blind people in July of 1943, 668 in October of 1943, and 333 more on June 30, 1944. Meanwhile, the Nazi authorities were relentlessly transporting Jews from there to the extermination camps, where they killed them.

This genocide, which cost six million Jews their lives and has been called the most consequential in human history, also caused the deaths of 5,000 blind people.

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Blind Jews in the Third Reich
author: Gabriel Richter
in Blindness and Eugenics, by Gabriel Richter.
Freiburg, Germany, 1986.
translated by Gail Snider
The Braille Monitor - Vol. 47, No. 5
May, 2004
in nfb.org/

 


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11.Fev.2023
Publicado por MJA