book summary due; final version due date extended to Dec. 4
Discussion of Nina Morecki and Ruth Gruber presentations. The following points were mentioned:
Nina sounded so forgiving, but was livid about Holocaust deniers
the "reality check" of seeing the actual physical body that experienced those events
Nina: a fighter like Jan Wiener? (Marcuse: the experiences that made her that way)
compare Auschwitz and Janowska camps
her experience waking in a pit of corpses
Eugenics / Euthanasia (be sure to read Reader no. 8 by Markle)
Eugenics: good genes; "racial science," "racial hygiene" (terms used in early 20th c.)
this was "normal science" at the time!
the leading role of American scientists and political implementation (example: Indiana)
Euthanasia: good death; mercy killing; "life unworthy of life": perverted under Hitler
transition from eugenics (breeding) to euthanasia (murder) prepared by films, textbooks
The Sept. 1939 program, to kill 30,000 by carbon monoxide gas
selection (of healthy: example Sarah Müller)
selector (example Dr. Friedrich Mennecke)
process (transportation in hospital buses with blackened windows; certain institutions)
resistance (Bishop van Galen’s sermons, Aug. 1941)
continuation until end of war (starvation, exposure, injections): ca. 75,000 total murders
The aftermath
Euthanasia doctors who practiced after the war in Germany
examples 1999 (still!): Kiel gynecologist, Jena pediatrician
Slides of Westerbork (internment camp in Holland), Auschwitz-Birkenau (1957 proposal, 1964 actual), and Auschwitz-Monowitz (I.G. Farben chemical factory) memorials
Zachor Project: invitation to event w/ dinner at UCSB Hillel, this Thursday