It's of immesurable importance that the realities behind terms such as Holocaust, Extermination and Final Solution are never forgotten - or used to glibly and without real understanding - describe the ongoing paradox which is The Middle East.
In 1939 - two years before the Nazis embarked on their project to systematically murder Europe's Jews - a secret 'Child Euthanasia Programme' within Germany set out to execute disabled children, with the objective of restoring the racial 'integrity' of the German nation. Eugenicists and their supporters considered 'life unworthy of life' to be both a genetic and a financial burden on German society and the state - and children with severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities were the first targets of this utterly horrendous killing operation. In August 1939, it was written into law that Medics, Nurses and Midwives were required to report any newborn and infant children that displayed signs of significant mental or physical disability.
Conservative estimates suggest that in excess of 10,000 young Germans and Austrians (up to 17 years-of-age) were killed between 1939 and '45 directly by the Child Euthenasia Programme.
At the same time, the Führer Chancellery was implementing a wholesale audit of German and Austrian adults suffering from chronic psychiatric or neurological disorders - those not of German or 'related' blood - the criminally insane or those committed on criminal grounds - and those who had been confined to an institution for more than five years. The secret programme that resulted was known as T4 and those at it's head had established a number of nationwide 'Gassing Stations' by the end of 1939.
T4's own internal records confirm that the 'euthanasia' effort claimed the lives of over 70,000 mentally and physically disabled persons between January 1940 and August 1941. Eventually the Aktion T4 programme became an 'open secret' across Germany - and following widespread protest - Hitler ordered the programme be halted in August '41.
Now Leeds academic, Dr Helen Atherton - a lecturer in nursing in the School of Healthcare at Leeds University, has co-curated a powerful and shocking temporary exhibition along with historian Dr Simon Jarrett, a visiting Fellow at the Open University, which opens on Wednesday October 2 at Holocaust Centre North. 'Finding Ivy: A Life Worth Living' is concerned with the Aktion T4 programme and more specifically - the Thirteen British-born victims who perished at the hands of the Nazis.
Helen initiated the 'Finding Ivy' project after a chance discovery 14 years ago and has been working on it, in her own time, ever since. She now leads the international team of researchers who have put this vitally important exhibition together.
Of these 13 British-born victims – some were from mixed British-German or British-Austrian marriages. Others were from the families of German and Austrian immigrants who moved to Britain to work in the early twentieth century before fatefully returning to Germany before the Second World War. Finding Ivy has been created specifically to tell their stories as a means of restoring some dignity and humanity to these and all those people who had their lives so cruelly taken away from them.
The Exhibition title refers to Ivy Angerer who was born in Broughty Ferry near Dundee in 1911. Her father was Austrian, and her mother was German. Ivy had learning disabilities. Her father was one of many Germans and Austrians in Britain rounded up as an enemy alien and kept in an enemy internment camp. It’s at that time that Ivy and her mum went back to live in Germany. Her mum died in 1916 whilst her husband was still in the camps.
He came back around 1919 and went back to Vienna with Ivy. But in 1930, she was admitted to a large psychiatric hospital in Vienna called Am Steinhof and there she stayed living and working in the laundry room until 1940, when she was transported to one of the Gassing Stations at Hartheim in Austria and murdered.
The Finding Ivy Exhibition will show how - like Ivy - all the other victims came from loving and supportive homes but sadly none were able to remain living with their families. At this time, families had little choice over their care and if psychiatrists and doctors declared that they needed to go into an institution to be 'treated' then they were not able to resist that. Moreover, families at the time were not made aware of the T4 programme…it was carried out in deception.
While the victims were being rounded up from their institutions, their relatives were simply told they were moving somewhere else. They had no idea they were going to be murdered. As the Exhibition materials will show, families were often - months afterwards - given a fake death certificate saying their loved one had died of a false cause.
To mark the Exhibition opening, a special one-off launch event will take place at Holocaust Centre North on the evening of October 2 – the Exhibition’s opening day. This free to attend event will feature presentations from Exhibition Curators Dr Helen Atherton and Dr Simon Jarrett alongside historian Professor Paul Weindling, a professor of history at Oxford Brookes University and one of the world’s leading experts on the history of psychiatry in Nazi Germany. Together they will discuss the T4 programme and shed light on the meticulous research that has unearthed these 13 heart-breaking and unique life stories.
Dr Helen Atherton comments: “It was on a trip to Hartheim in Austria in 2010, one of the six centres where the Nazis killed people with disabilities and mental illnesses, that I first found out about the British born victims of Aktion T4. I was surprised and obviously shocked. At that point, I couldn't quite understand how they'd managed to get from Britain to Germany and Austria and end up in that situation. Together with Simon, and a team working with us in Germany and Austria, we set about uncovering their stories as we very much wanted to honour them in some way. We used evidence from local, regional and national archives to find out more. We also talked to relatives of the victims, some of whom who knew nothing of the truth. Hence Finding Ivy was created and curated. We are thrilled to bring it to Holocaust Centre North to share and be a part of the remarkable work they are doing to preserve the lives and legacies of those whose lives were affected by the atrocities of Nazi persecution.”
Dr Simon Jarrett who is a member of the Finding Ivy research team and the author of two books on the history of disabled people says: “We are incredibly pleased and extremely grateful that Holocaust Centre North have agreed to take this Exhibition. The T4 programme was a precursor to the wider Holocaust and was where the Nazi regime tried and tested its methods to commit genocide, including mass killing by gas, public deception, calming techniques to ensure orderly killing process and recruitment of German civilians into killing programmes. Much of the equipment used at T4 killing centres was packed up and sent to be reassembled at the death camps in Poland, and perpetrators of T4 went on to become perpetrators, sometimes at a very senior level, in the Holocaust. It is therefore an important element of the Holocaust story, and it is important that it is given prominence. It shows how the medical profession at all levels easily and willingly became complicit in mass murder. The exhibition also has important ramifications today in raising issues about how society perceives and treats its most vulnerable members. People with learning disabilities suffer constant injustice and discrimination in medical treatment, and the shadows of eugenic thinking and the T4 programme hang over much practice and policy towards disabled and mentally ill people today. Finally, the presence of British-born victims in the programme is a surprise and of great interest to the British public."
Hannah Randall, Head of Learning at Holocaust Centre North comments: “We are very proud to be hosting ‘Finding Ivy – A Life Worth Living’ at Holocaust Centre North. This will be the first time we have hosted an Exhibition which tells the largely untold story of those persecuted and killed under Nazi occupied Germany for having a disability - and the focus on British-born victims fits in perfectly with our permanent exhibition uniquely telling the stories of Survivors and their families who created new lives following the Holocaust in the north of England.”
Tickets to this Exhibition launch event at Holocaust Centre North on October 2nd are free but must be booked in advance HERE
Thanks to the Angerer family and the Finding Ivy exhibition team for all images
