On this day we remember the victims of the terrible Nazi holocaust.
So many millions died as dark ideas about race and genetics were taken to their logical conclusion.
It's amazing how few people know that the holocaust began with the slaughter of disabled people and residents of institutions and asylums.
They also assume that the people who carried out the 'euthanasia' (as it was called) were soldiers or SS, but in fact they were nurses and care workers from the institutions that had been charged with caring for these people.
That means people like me carried out these killings.
An ideology of eugenics prevailed. This meant that people really believed that death was a 'kindness', preferable to the lives that disabled people led.
Eugenics was a set of ideas held not just in Germany, but in every country. These ideas, while officially discredited, lurk dangerously in many of the assumptions that society makes about disabled people even today.
Here's a short film made by disabled people that shows what happened in the 'Aktion T4' programme.
This hard-hitting play by Nabil Shaban was banned by youtube, but is still available on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/12792261
Don't be a victim. Don't be a perpetrator. Above all, don't be a bystander.
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