What the t-4 program really is Opener: Many people don’t realize the pain and suffering that mentally disabled went through during the holocaust. They practically thought that they mentally ill was unworthy of living so they thought they only thing they could do was kill them. People don’t realize how much this impacted many horrific disasters that happened throughout the holocaust but several people didn’t seem to care but then there was others that actually did care what was going on and they thought what the doctors was doing was wrong and wanted to put a stop to it.
No one really had a clue what was really going on so they didn’t get to see how much pain the mentally ill was in. Thesis Statement: During the Holocaust Hitler decided to start the t4 program which meant they killed the lives of the ill or mentally disabled, they shouldn’t be allowed to kill the lives of innocent and people have stood up to them and tried to say what they were doing was wrong and the program lead to if you don’t stand up for the weakest people then more will come.
Background: The term euthanasia means literally good death it usually refers to the inducement of a painless death for a chronically or terminally ill individual who would otherwise suffer (“Euthanasia Program”). “The project that carried out the extermination of children and adults with disabilities was known as “T4,” (Disability Social History). The Nazis tried to hide what was going on so people didn’t find out but eventually it got out to the public so Hitler had to make the t-4 program (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). The euthanasia campaign, called Operation T4, was code-named after the address of the confiscated Jewish villa at Tiergartenstrasse 4, which was the address of the program’s central administrative offices,” (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). “A decision on whether to allow the child to live was then made by three medical experts solely on the basis of the questionnaire, without any examination and without reading any medical records,” (“The History Place”). Each of the questionnaire people placed either = in red of – in blue for treatment on a special form for the nurses and doctors to see (“The History Place”).
The red mark meant they were gonna kill the child and the blue mark meant they were gonna go against killing the child (“The History Place”) They disguised the gas chambers as showers so they people don’t know what they really are but within the “showers” the have pure carbon dioxide that they will use the kill the people (“Euthanasia Program”). Reason one: People wanted to stand up for the project and wanted to end and a large number of victims were being killed. Many Germans did not want to be reminded of individuals who did not measure up to their concept of a “master race. ”
“Nevertheless, the killing continued in greater secrecy until the spring of 1945. From 1939 through 1945, Operation T-4 and other euthanasia actions murdered between 200,000 and 250,000 disabled people,” (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). “Statistics show that under the leadership of these men, 70,000 to 80,000 people–including 4000 to 5000 Jews– became victims of the euthanasia killings,” (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). The huge increase in the death rate for the disabled combined with the very obvious plumes of odorous smoke over the killing centers aroused suspicion and fear,” (“The History Place”). People when the started finding out about the project they started speaking out against the program trying to get it to end (“Disability Social History’). Despite public protests in 1941, the Nazi leadership continued this program in secret throughout the war. About 200,000 handicapped people were murdered between 1940 and 1945.
Hitler wanted to protect the medical staff and physicians from being killed so he tried a document trying to protect those people (“Euthanasia Program”). “Thousands were killed at psychiatric institutions and paediatric clinics by being spoonfed lethal medicines and drugs,”. (“Euthanasia gram in Nazi”). People all around had a feeling of what was going and there was a handful of people wanted to try and do something to make this all stop. Reason two:The program lead to many horrific events that people didn’t expect to happen.
Operation T-4 anticipated the Holocaust (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). The t4 program was ideology of racial purity and methods of destruction so they thought it was the final solution (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). “They used the technical knowledge and experience gained during the euthanasia program to construct huge killing centers at Auschwitz, Treblinka and other concentration camps in an attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe,” (“The History Place”). Thousands were killed at psychiatric institutions and paediatric clinics by being spoonfed lethal medicines and drugs,”. (“Euthanasia in Nazi”). Since the T4 program was a secret the people running had to try hide the deadly designs (“Euthanasia Program”). “Even though physicians and institutional administrators falsified official records in every case to indicate that the victims died of natural causes, the euthanasia program quickly become an open secret,” (“Euthanasia Program”).
The use of the gas chambers began serving as training centers for the SS (“The History Place”). The killing ended with the surrender in May, 1945 and the leading doctors were put on trial at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials,” (“Euthanasia in Nazi”). “The extermination program in Nazi Germany caused eugenics theorists in the United States and Europe to backpedal on their beliefs about eliminating mental illness and congenital disabilities through euthanasia,” (“Disability Social History”). The killing centres to which the handicapped were transported were the antecedents of the extermination camps, and their organized transportation foreshadowed mass deportation.
After they did this with the children the program quickly expanded that included older disabled children and also adults (“The History Place”). No one would think the program would lead to such bad things and it basically was the Final Solution of the Holocaust. Reason three: They shouldn’t have used the dangerous methods to kill the ill and that lead to the “Final Solution”. The nurses at the centers performed different methods of murder (“The Holocaust Chronicle”).
The public health authorities wanted the parents are disabilities kids to send their kids to a medical clinic but basically what it was a clinic where they killed their kids they killed the kids by lethal overdoses of medication or by starvation (“Euthanasia Program”). The t-4 programmers sends in questionnaires to all public health places, nursing homes, for the illed and old age (“Euthanasia Program”).
The patients that they selected to be killed was sent to one of the six euthanasia centers in Germany or Austria (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). A decision on whether to allow the child to live was then made by three medical experts solely on the basis of the questionnaire, without any examination and without reading any medical records,” (“The History Place”). After Hitler decided to try and stop them from killing the patients in gas chambers, the program instead went undergrounds and they poisoned the patients and starved them to death,” (“Disability Social History’). “On May 8, 1945, the war ended in Germany.
In the extermination institutes, they either kept on killing, or let the patients starve to death,” (“Disability Social History’). “So that patients who, on the basis of human judgment, are considered incurable, can be granted a mercy death after a discerning diagnosis,” (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). “T4 functionaries burned the bodies in crematoria attached to the gassing facilities,” (“Euthanasia Program”). “German school children studied maths problems and calculated how many services, how much bread, jam, and other necessities of life could be saved by killing people,” (“Euthanasia in Nazi”).
During World War 2 the T-4 program was used for wartime killing and they thought it was a necessity (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). “The decision had to be unanimous. In cases where the decision was not unanimous the child was kept under observation and another attempt would be made to get a unanimous decision,” (“The History Place”). “A total of six killing centers were established including the well known psychiatric clinic at Hadamar,” (“The History Place”). They used several methods of murder to kill the mentally disabled (“The Holocaust Chronicle”).
Patients had to be reported if they suffered from schizophrenia, epilepsy, senile disorders, therapy resistant paralysis and syphilitic diseases, retardation, encephalitis,” (“The History Place”). Starvation and lethal injection were used at first, but eventually the method of choice was gassing with carbon monoxide in chambers disguised as tiled shower (“The Holocaust Chronicle”). The people were involved in this program had no idea what was even going on they just thought they were going to get examined but the doctors used many horrific methods to make sure they didn’t know what was going on.
Counter Argument: Even though there were those people that wanted the program to stop there were other people that thought what they were doing was perfectly fine. “German school children studied maths problems and calculated how many services, how much bread, jam, and other necessities of life could be saved by killing people,” (“Euthanasia in Nazi”). “These worthless people included mentally and physically disabled Germans and Austrians, children and adults, who were regarded as a blight on the Third Reich’s racial integrity,” (“The Holocaust Chronicle”).
However, the Nazi ideological conviction which labeled these persons “life unworthy of life,” (“Euthanasia Program”). However sterilization of people with disabilities continued to be a widespread practice well into the 1970s (“Disability Social History’). Conclusion: From the T4 program you can learn that the holocaust was not the place people wanted to be not only were thousands of people getting killed but the lives of the innocent mentally ill were also getting killed.
No one really heard about what happened to the mentally ill because no one really seemed to care but they went through a bunch of horrific things all because people thought they were unworthy of life and they shouldn’t be able to be here. Through the T-4 program they killed the lives of the mentally ill through different methods of killing and the program eventually lead to what people called the Final solution and they were people who did stand up for the mentally ill and wanted the program to stop.
