The Holocaust from a Disabled and LGBT Perspective

The Holocaust from a LGBT and Disabled Perspective
By Dylan Rothbein

Before the rise of Nazism in Germany, under the leadership of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a liberal place to be during the roaring 20s. During the roaring 20s Berlin was the LGBT capital of Europe with a prosperous club and drag scene where LGBT people lived openly Even though the German Penal Code had anti sodomy laws on the books. One of the most prominent figures to come out of the Berlin LGBT community is the sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. Magnus Hirschfeld was a Jewish man living in the closet about his sexuality. Magnus Hirschfeld also made cinema history with having the first same sex kiss between two men in one of his short films. Magnus Hirschfeld was also the founder of the first LGBT community health clinic in Germany called the Institute of Sexual Research. Magnus Hirschfeld founded the first LGBT advocacy organization called the Scientific Humanitarian Committee.

Berlin Germany was also a hotbed of gender variant people who varied in their gender identity and gender expression. The Institute of Sexual Research was where trans people went to get support. The Institute of Sexual Research was ahead of its time on transsexual healthcare by performing gender confirmation surgeries. Institute of Sexual Research also administered hormone replacement therapy. The advances in transgender health care by the Institute of Sexual Research continues to save lives to this very day. One of the most notable trans patients at the Institute of Sexual Research was is Lily Elbe who received her bottom surgery at the Institute of Sexual Research that inspired the film “The Danish Girl”. The Institute of Sexual Research also helped patients socially transition. The Institute of Sexual Research issued identification cards to cross dressers and trans people that were used to help with communicating with the authorities regarding their gender expression and gender identity. The Institute of Sexual Research released a publication for five years straight called “The Other Sex”. The Other Sex helped build community amongst trans people and crossdressers by showcasing the stories of trans people, information on how to transition, and the science of gender and sexuality. People who read The Other Sex felt a sense of community and were much less likely to commit suicide. Although, The Other Sex helped people with their suicidal ideations trans suicide rates continue to be quite high in the trans community.

This story of the LGBT community in Germany during the years of the Weimar Republic wouldn’t be complete without recognizing the contribution of lesbians in the German LGBT community. Although there was immense amount of sexism in German society lesbian women still found a way to enter mingle amongst themselves throughout the bar and club circuit. Overtime German society became more conservative leading up to the rise of Nazism in Germany. During this in German society leading up to the rise of Nazism in Germany a conspiracy theory began to emerge blaming all the problems in German society on various minority groups within German society, including the LGBT community, particularly in Berlin and other financial and commercial hubs throughout the country. As the Nazis rose to power the Nazis began to enforce various restrictions against the LGBT community. The Nazis never criminalized lesbian relations because Nazis found women homosexuals to be less threatening then male homosexuals. Occasionally women who did not adhere to traditional domestic duties were prosecuted for lesbian sex acts and for getting an abortion. Some lesbians flew under the radar of Nazis by socially transitioning from female to male. One of the most notable women to present as male was Frieda Belinfante.

Among the leadership of the Nazi party what is Ernest Rome who was an out gay man and permanent member of the Berlin LGBT community. Ernest Rome led the opposition to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Eventually a rumor spread that there was a homosexual in the ranks of the Nazi party. The homosexual implicated in this matter was Ernest Rome. One of the people to come out and defend Ernest Rome when he was accused of being a homosexual was Himmler himself who alleged that allegations against Ernest Rome were propagated by Jewish people. The Nazi regime ended up executing Ernest Rome. After Ernest Rome what is executed by the Nazis, the Nazis instituted a registry to investigate various sexual acts and acts of pedophilia with harsh penalties including being required to wear a pink triangle just as Jewish people had to wear a yellow star under Nazi rule. The Nazis publicly humiliated gay men by drowning them in German swamps.

The Nazis believed that homosexuals operated on the antithesis of the natural progressions of what it meant to be a human being because by and large they didn’t end up creating offspring that would fuel be expansion of that Aryan race. The Nazis believed that homosexuals were a hindrance on the longevity of the nation. The Nazis thought that increasing numbers of homosexuals in their society to be an issue that was getting progressively worse with every generation that went by. Nazis saw homosexuals as disgraceful role models for Aryan children. The Nazis didn’t believe that a person’s sexuality was a private matter when the integrity and longevity of the state hung in the balance.

Nazis rounded up gay people in random samples categorizing them in one of two categories, the occasional offender who could it possibly have been a metaphor for a male bisexual and the hard boil homosexual. Both categories of homosexuals Nazis believed, could not be changed or altered although Nazis used the concentration camp as a means of conversion therapy for homosexuals. In the concentration camp Nazis castrated homosexuals both knowingly and through blackmail. Nazis also used synthetic testosterone to control the impulses of homosexuals which seems counter intuitive because regardless other person’s orientation testosterone exacerbates a person’s sex drive. Unlike Jewish people in the concentration camp there wasn’t a sense of camaraderie between homosexual inmates. Jewish people continued practicing Judaism in the concentration camp to varying degrees. Gay people on the other hand did not have any unifying cultural characteristics that united them with their fellow prisoners in the concentration camp. Gay men typically kept to themselves in the concentration camp. Therefore, there is a very limited record of homosexuals in concentration camps. 60% of gentile homosexuals where exterminated four months into their stay in the concentration camp. Most people who wore pink triangles in the concentration camps are lost to history. After the Holocaust most people who wore the pink triangle kept their time in the concentration camp a secret and ended up marrying a beard. After the Holocaust there was still a sizable amount of stigma against homosexuals which is why the plight of gay men in the concentration camp went largely unrecognized throughout majority of history.

Nazi Germany had a policy of involuntary sterilization where they sterilized people who were psychiatrically disabled , intellectually disabled, and people of mixed race. It’s important to realize that the policy of sterilization didn’t start with Nazi Germany it actually started with the United States particularly with the ruling Buck V. Bell. Although California carried out the most sterilizations prior to the Nazi Germany, sterilizations in the United States started with New York and Indiana. Nazi Germany sterilized 300,000 to 400,000 people. Nazis used a plethora of methods to sterilize people including tubal ligation, vasectomies, X Rays, and radium. Nazis did not sterilize Jewish people although they found Jewish people to be inferior. A majority of the people who were sterilized by Nazi Germany were people in psych wards and institutional state hospitals. Along with the Nazi policy of involuntary sterilizations came the edict of the marriage law which instituted hereditary health courts whereby perspective parents were required to certify that all their perspective children did not inherit any trades that were deemed undesirable by the state like a developmental disability or a psychiatric disability. To drum up public support for the Nazi involuntary sterilizations Nazis used propaganda like The Nazi film “Inheritance” were used to disparage the psychiatrically disabled and developmentally disabled. The Nazis also pushed their atrocious eugenics philosophy to children in elementary school. The legacy of indoctrinating children into a particular worldview continues to this day with the growing trend of indoctrinating children into the racist segregationist philosophy of Critical Race theory. Sterilization continues today with parents giving their children cross sex hormones, puberty blockers, and hysterectomies.

In October 1939 Hitler enacted an executive action that gave the green light to physicians to euthanize their patients, as far as they were concerned this was merciful death. The Nazi regime saw euthanasia as expedient way of dealing with people who the Nazis deemed as a financial burden to society, hence a detriment to the Arian race. Hitler felt that war would be the best time to justify euthanasia because the allocation of resources would be allocated towards the war effort particularly pertaining to the use of hospital supplies and hospital personnel. The policy of euthanasia by the Nazi regime was never written into German law because they were concerned about the blowback which led to the euthanizing of German people can be done in a shroud of secrecy. The Nazi regime urged community groups to conduct surveys to delineate who requires euthanizing. The surveys of community groups were reviewed by Nazi certified psychiatrists. Perspective victims of euthanizing were sent to castles, former psychiatric facilities, fortresses and prisons which were used as killing centers. In the beginning the euthanizing, the act was carried out by lethal injection which progressed into sending people into death chambers that they made to look like showers. The Nazi regime found that gas chambers where more efficient then lethal injection in the endeavor of killing people. After the people were sent to the gas chambers the bodies were removed then sent to crematoriums. The Nazis filled urns with the ashes of the people they gassed then they sent the ashes to families upon request. Nazi physicians committed medical malpractice by misrepresenting the facts pertaining to people they euthanized, and they even used aliases for the people that were not legally recognized then they preceded to send letters of sympathy to the relatives of these individuals. Jewish psychiatrically disabled people were sent to the gas chambers no matter their potential contribution to society. When the word got out about the euthanizing of disabled people by Nazis celebrated spending the night at the bar drinking after a hard day’s work and kids started joking about the gas changers in everyday vernacular. After a while local clergy as well as the court system involved with the euthanizing program of the Nazi regime in charge some of the people implicated in these matters with murder. Local clergy urged leaders in their communities to provide safe harbor to psychiatrically disabled people who are being considered to be euthanized. After receiving bad press Hitler put a stop to the euthanizing of psychiatrically disabled people. When Hitler stopped euthanizing disabled people the gas chambers were dismantled and sent to the concentration camps in Poland later to be used in the final solution. Even after the policy of euthanizing was discontinued by the Nazis, the Nazis continued to denigrate the disabled in the public sphere and continued to entice doctors into killing their patients and hospitals continue to kill their patients of all ages on a daily basis all in the name a eugenics. The Nazis dispatched psychiatrists to concentration camps to discern who was able to work those people who were not deemed able to work were euthanized at killing centers that didn’t end up being dismantled. As the Nazis acquired territory Nazis began to shoot and gas psychiatrically disabled people in the jurisdictions that they acquired in institutional state hospitals. The reason why Nazis were able to stop euthanizing disabled people as a matter of official policy and weren’t able to stop the instituting of the final solution was because unlike The Jews in places like The Warsaw ghetto The psychiatrically disabled where heirs of the richest people on the highest echelons of German society who were even in the Nazi party and worked directly with Hitler.

A prominent figure in disability history and the history of the Third Reich is Hans Asperger who was an autism researcher and clinician who commonly referred to himself in the third person which is commonplace in autistic culture and among Aspies. Hans Asperger grew up in Hausbrunn Austria. In his youth Hans Asperger was known to be a loner who was hyperlexic. Hans Asperger went on to become chair of Pediatrics at the University of Vienna and he taught at the University of Innsbruck. When the Nazis occupied Vienna, Hans Asperger directed a clinic for autistic kids at the Pediatric University that doubled as a residential treatment center. When Hans Asperger worked at that clinic for autistic kids in Vienna, he worked with Sister Victorine Zak. Sister Victorine Zak was ahead of her time in developing comprehensive strategies to support and develop the skills of autistic children through music, movement and speech, which are now all common techniques used to support autistic people no matter where they fall on the spectrum. Although Sister Victorine Zak was killed when the allies bombed the clinic she deserves to be remembered as one of the great allies and caretakers to disabled people alongside great caretakers like Annie Sullivan who worked with Helen Keller teaching her to communicate in many ways. Hans Asperger remains a controversial figure because although he accomplished a lot for autistic people some say in the book in a different key an autistic history says that Hans Asperger was a Nazi even though he was never a member of Nazi party who sent intellectually disabled people to die well he saw high functioning people as people that could be an asset to the Third Reich. On the contrary in the book “Neurotribes: An Autistic History” Hans Asperger is seen as a great hero to the autistic community. At the end of the day history should be understood in the context of the times of which is being referred to in a particular circumstance nor is history black or white. So to understand Hans Asperger like many other historical figures you have to accept the good with the somber as hindsight is always 2020.

Hans Asperger believed that autism should be classified as a personality impairment. He came to this conclusion when he was working at the clinic for autistic kids at the pediatric University in Vienna Austria where he observed many things about his autistic clients. Before Hans Asperger it was conventional wisdom to see autism as a form of childhood schizophrenia. Fritz was a client of Hans Asperger who is known to give all parties around him the nickname Do and what is known to be aggressive at times and unable to sit still in retrospect Fritz could have also been ADHD on top of being autistic. In addition, Fritz was also sensory seeking where he did have a tendency to bang on the table at an incredibly high volume. Harro was a remarkable individual who Hans Asperger worked with. He was travel trained at 8 years old with public transportation and he was a gay and in autistic fashion he was impaired in his ability to express his sexuality in a socially cognizant fashion. The question of autism and LGBT identities is something we’re only beginning to come to terms with other society. Hellmuth who was supported by Hans Asperger had a speech delay, was obsessed over small details, and kept a strict routine. Ernest was also cared for by Hans Asperger. Ernest was learning disabled and oftentimes rocked back and forth, today we call this behavior self-stimulation or stimming which is a reflection of autistic body language that reflects excitement or anxiety depending on this situation. Ernest also showed an overlap in his impairments with intellectual disability. Early on Hans Asperger realized that there was a hereditary component to autism. A lot of the parents of his clients were academics who also exhibited autistic like traits in Steve Silverman’s article “Aspie geek” he noticed the same thing among the children whose parents worked in Silicon Valley. As Hans Asperger supported these individuals a couple of themes emerged, impairments in social interaction, intense and specialized interests, often in academic subjects, impairments in sensory integration and savant skills. Hans Asperger also commonly referred to his clients as little professors. On the other hand, psychiatrist Leo Kanner noticed other themes develop among his autistic client that there are some autistic people were nonspeaking, echolalic, and experienced regression of developmental milestones, such as the ability to speak, intellectually disabled people who were destined to live with their parents for the duration of their lives. Both Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner observed that autism what is mainly a phenomenon that affected males over females. The gender disparity in autism diagnosis favoring males is an outgrowth of the way girls are socialized. Hans Asperger thought autism was an outgrowth a masculinity which is also why you oftentimes see autistic girls with a blunt masculine attitude about sex. In the 80s Lorna Wing rediscovered Hans Asperger’s renowned essay that he is most known for ‘Autistic Psychopathy’ in Childhood” and combined it with the ideas of Leo Kanner creating the autistic spectrum. As far as I’m concerned Hans Asperger discovered high functioning autistic people like me who were diagnosed Asperger’s named after Hans Asperger added to the DSM in 1994 and Leo Kanner discovered low functioning autistic people, like my brother. Hans Asperger saw autistic people as an asset for society as long as they were on a high functioning end of the spectrum particularly in highly specialized fields despite all of their impairments or the varying level of support they might need from those who to take care of them, or as Temple Grandin says where would the world be without Autistic people in essence this is the greatness of neurodiversity.

Every year the Jewish community commemorates the Holocaust with the observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day. As I contemplate the atrocities of the Holocaust I also understand that the Holocaust is in many ways not just about the six million Jews who perished but is really about so much more. From the full realization of the horrors of eugenics to the mostly Gay men who are forced to wear pink triangles by the Nazi regime many of their stories are still missing to history who were killed just for being their authentic selves. I reflect on the pink triangle in the same way that I reflect on how in Hebrew school we made yellow stars so we could understand the pain of our ancestors. Although the Nazis refer to their gay population as queer, we have a beautiful tradition in the LGBT community of taking the power away from the slurs that were once used against us and reclaiming them as a sign of power and empowerment even though some members of our community are uncomfortable with this terminology. After grappling with the history of the Holocaust from a LGBT and disabled perspective. We have much more people to say the mourners Kaddish for then just the Jewish victims of The Holocaust. I also realize that the work of an activist is never done and I carry these stories of these people with me now wherever I go like I carry the stories and my own family in the Holocaust from my Grandfather, who lost his business in Kristallnacht. In my great uncle who after being in The US army during World War Two working in the laundry room went on to give presentations at schools about the horrors of the Holocaust. People have asked me on your numerous occasions after going to the Holocaust museum in Israel on your Asperger’s birthright trip Holocaust survivors that were experimented on by the Nazis can you still call yourself a pacifist? The answer to this question is unequivocally yes I am proud to be a pacifist as Joan Baez going to jail a pacifist makes you a stronger pacifist. I will also be forever in the debt of Magnus Hirschfeld and his Institute of Sexual Research because if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have had the Stonewall riot or the Compton Cafeteria riots. The Holocaust no matter which group you’re referring to that was affected will always be a stain on humanity.