Holocaust Memorial Week
23 - 29 January 2012
Since 2007 the University of Essex has marked Holocaust Memorial with a series of events taking place during the week that leads up to or includes the 27 of January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by Soviet troops.
The theme of this year's programme is disability and euthanasia. The Nazis regarded disabled people as a threat to the biologically pure Aryan master race which they wanted to create, and there was, therefore, no place for them in the German Volksgemeinschaft.
The 'Sterilisation Law' of 14 July 1933 prescribed forced sterilisation for people with "hereditary diseases" – it is estimated that between 300,000 and 400,000 people were sterilised under this law, the majority of them patients in mental hospitals. In 1938-9, Hitler initiated a decree which allowed the "mercy killing" of those judged as incurable and "unworthy of life".
This so-called "euthanasia" programme was used to "cleanse" the German nation of people considered genetically defective and a financial burden to society: between 1939 and 1945, some 200,000 to 250,000 physically and mentally disabled people were murdered under this programme.
"Speak Up Speak Out" is the official theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January) as set by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT).
The ideas behind forced sterilisations and "euthanasia" killings of disabled people were not unique to the Nazis, but no state carried them as far as Hitler's Germany. During Holocaust Memorial Week 2012 we want to remember these often forgotten victims of Nazi racial policies, and we want to ask how we as individuals and as a society view and treat disabled people today.
The Holocaust Memorial Week events take place at the University's Colchester campus, the Minories Gallery and Firstsite. A Ceremony of Light to commemorate victims of the Holocaust and other genocides will be held on Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday 27 January.
All events are free and open to the public. See the programme for full details.
For more information email: events@essex.ac.uk , or telephone: 01206 872400
Coordination
Coordinator of Holocaust Memorial Week at the University of Essex:
Professor Rainer Schulze - Director of the Human Rights Centre
Department of History, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park
Colchester, CO4 3SQ, Telephone 01206 873404, email: hme (non essex users add @essex.ac.uk)