User:ChrissyRickyGrizzy/Statistics of Sterilized Deaf People

Statistics of Sterilized Deaf People
Overview

In Germany, an era began of having the “perfect” people who had strong genes by the most elite people. By elite people, the Nazi Regime wanted every person who was to be born in the years of the 1920s to the 1940s to be perfect and have no defects. (Defects include but are not limited blindness, deafness or hearing impaired, and etc.) The action of eliminating other humans because they have undesirable traits is called Eugenics. According to Merriam-Webster, Eugenics is defined as, “improving the human population by controlled breeding to increase desired heritable traits in the future offspring of a community.” The point of this elimination was to have ultimate control and dominance over the feeble-minded, to present fear onto others, and to rid of those who have been considered a “social burden” due to a disability. The process to have this perfect world was to do surgery on those who were imperfect. The victims, or imperfects as the Nazi Regime would say, were forced to be sterilized. Sterilization is the permanent method of birth control; it is a medical surgery, to make a person or animal unable to reproduce an offspring. The victims who were sterilized were turned in by teachers, doctors, and old friends.

Statistics
Over the years of the 1930s to the 1940s there were roughly about 300,000-400,000 sterilizations executed. Although Hitler and the Nazi regime had the most forced sterilizations in the world, they were not the first to do so. The idea was from the U.S, between the years of 1907 to 1939, more than 300,000 U.S prisoners and mentally ill patients were sterilized. Half of that number was executed in California. In Germany, Hitler, who was following the strategy of sterilizing prisoners and the “feeble-minded,” also turned his attention to those who were deaf. Those who were considered “hereditarily deaf” or seen as feeble-minded in the eyes of the regime. In the deaf institutions Heidelberg, 109/113 families with a deaf child had two healthy parents. But of those families, 27% of the students were sterilized; they were considered being hereditarily deaf. Although there was no statistics or evidence that one could be hereditarily deaf.

According to the author, there were only 17/1215 deaf people who had done the sterilization voluntarily. In a questionnaire of 1,215 survivors that were forcibly sterilized, 54 percent of them were female. The youngest person to be sterilized was only nine years old and the oldest being fifty, with the 34 percent of victims being between 22-30 years old. Being turned in by either the local health authority (46%), the Nazi party (30%), and their own schools (22%). The largest number of sterilizations coming from Soest (60) and the City of Berlin school (54). The Provincial Institution of the Deaf in Soest had one of the highest rates of sterilization because of Director Wegge, who had been a Nazi follower. He would walk around school in his SS uniform and he took it among himself to determine which students were hereditary deaf and would report them to the authorities. From April 1925 to June 1944, Wegge reported 338 students out of 569 to be sterilized, not only did he report his students but he also arranged for the ride to the hospital for them to be sterilized. Wegge was not the only teacher. There were multiple teachers and directors that turned in their students such as; SS Director Bewer and Director Edwin Singer. These men would remove their students by force from their schools to be sterilized. It's sad to see that the people that the deaf looked up most to were the one to turn them in such as family doctors and teachers. Out of 1,215 people, 76% said they still suffer from psychological pain and 49% suffer from physical pain.

Not only were there forced sterilizations there were also forced abortions, out of 52 victims 3 months (8), 4 months (9), 5-6 months, (10), 7 months (4), 8 months (2), and 7 women getting forced abortion at 9 months into the pregnancy. They were forced to get abortions for possibly giving their child hereditary deafness or any other hereditary disease and also the Nazi wanted to stop the child from having an “impaired life”. In the case of Frau Fanny Mikus, she was forced to be sterilized in 1936, later on, she had become pregnant and forced to get an abortion and be sterilized for the second time. While getting a marriage registry she was forced to get sterilized again to be able to get married, she later became pregnant again and to abort the child and get yet another sterilization. After all, said and done, they finally got married and later on ended up divorcing because “afterward, our marriage was unhappy, no children, and our lovemaking was not complete as before.” May Deaf people be mentally and physically in pain for the rest of their lives because of what the Nazis had done to make their perfect German” in their eyes not caring who they scared in the process.

Aftermath and Questionnaire
As stated before, the deaf community was left with an overwhelming emotion of grief, as well as, mental, emotional, and physical pain. “The Crying Hands of Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany’ written by Horst Biesold, gave the reader a realization of inhumane injustice through the eyes of the

victims. Biesold was able to accumulate varies testimonies from this horrific event. He created questionnaires to be filled out by the victims who were sterilized. There were a total of 25 questions. The general ideas were; what their age was when they were sterilized, was it forced sterilization, who approached them? Was it the police? Teachers? Doctors? There were also personal questions like, how did they feel then how do they feel now, and so on. There was a low percentage of the people who didn’t respond. With that data there wear amusing numbers discovered. The people receiving the questionnaires were told that their names would not be made public due to legal factors. There were a total of 1,215 responses, 662 made by females and 553 made by males. The highest number of sterilization for birth years was 1911-1915. According to the surveyed, they wear sterilized between the year of 1933 and 1945. Those were the years on record. The ages of the people who responded wear as young as 11 when sterilized and 50 being the oldest on record.

Testimonies of Survivors
Testimonies were also taken from survivors. In these testimonies, we can see the pain and horrific trials the victims experienced. The survivors expressed how it affected their sex life and love life because they didn’t have the pleasure they thought they would have of creating another life. A female born in 1914 stated; “I was forcibly sterilized by the Nazi party in July 1938. It was an extremely painful torture, the doctor bored around in the sensitive part of my vagina with his fingers. I suffered terrible pain. Throughout my marriage with a deaf husband, I have had pains as a result of the operation. Even today the pains are often very intense, almost always I have pain during intercourse… the pain kills all pleasure for me. It caused me a lot of grief that I couldn't have a child…” (pg. 145) Male born 1912; “My wife NN died on DD 1979. She was sterilized and suffered her whole life that she couldn’t have children… Now I, her husband, stand here all alone, if I had had children, I wouldn’t feel alone in my old age.” (pg. 145) Female, born 1909; “My husband was about 24 years old when he was sterilized in 1935. After the sterilization he suffered another eight years, has ruptures on both sides, and also had heart problems. So he had to have all this brought back to mind and he is still psychologically disturbed by it.’ (pg. 145) These are only three out of the many stories told to the author of “Crying Hands.” Adding on to the force of sterilization, there are letters on record that read the following,

“Dear NN, […] compare yourself to others. Several million fell in the war or were killed. You are still alive. You can work and earn a satisfactory living. The fact that you have no children should not be seen as a misfortune. Better to have no children than one who is blind or deaf… That’s the way it should be now too. So, NN, keep your chin up. And good luck!’ With best regards, Director Edwin Singer.”

Like shown above, their letters came with a tone of viciousness and mockery. These letters were sent to those affected by the sterilization laws with the intention to convince sterilized victims that what was done to them was nothing but a blessing.