Deaf People in Hitler's Europe

Introduction

167 Introduction Nazi racial hygiene policies were carried to their deadliest conclusion within the borders of the Third Reich where the Aryan master race was supposed to be purified and propagated. In the case of Jews, the Nazi worldview called for their removal from all of Europe, whether by expulsion or extermination. Similarly, Roma and Sinti, often called Gypsies, were targeted for elimination as a racially inferior people, although the Nazis were never as successful in their application of racial policies to them as they were to the Jews. Other groups within Germany who were to be eliminated or at least reduced dramatically included those with cognitive and physical disabilities, homosexuals, habitual criminals, and others in the vague category of “asocials.” We will probably never know if programs of elimination based on eugenics theories might have been applied in occupied territories not incorporated into the Greater Reich. Only country-by-country studies of European countries conquered by Hitler’s armies will tell us how deaf people were treated as a result of occupation and local responses to those with disabilities during very trying times. We also know only a little about the fate of deaf Jews at this point. In Germany, where the deportation and removal of Jews began early, it was miraculous for a deaf Jew to survive, except in cases of emigration or successful concealment of Jewishness. Few deaf German Jews would have survived lengthy slave labor conditions in the camps as the war dragged on. Indeed, many would not have survived the initial selection process in camps such as Auschwitz. Only limited information has been uncovered about deaf Jews in occupied France, Belgium, and Holland, and not much is known of such survivors from Poland and other devastated areas of Eastern Introduction 167 Donna F. Ryan 168 Donna F. Ryan Europe. As archives have opened in eastern Europe and researchers interested in deaf people have begun to investigate the events that took place in occupied western European countries, we can look forward to a more sophisticated discussion about deaf Jews in Europe during World War II. Since 1997, John Schuchman and Donna Ryan have interviewed more than a dozen deaf survivors of the Holocaust in Hungary. After initial interviews in Budapest, with the help of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, we were able to bring some of the survivors to tell their stories at the 1998 conference, “Deaf People in Hitler’s Europe.” What follows are their stories, first told in narrative form in John Schuchman’s essay, and then told in their own words in transcription of part of their testimony. As the son of deaf parents, Schuchman has developed a special rapport with the survivors and has applied his intimate knowledge of Deaf culture to extrapolate the story of a vibrant deaf Jewish community . He portrays that community as well defined by association with the Mexico Street Jewish deaf school and held together by their wartime experiences. Because the German occupation and deportations from Hungary occurred at such a late date, and their incarceration and forced labor were of relatively short duration, many of them survived. Those who survived often were helped by other camp inmates, sometimes relatives, who convinced the authorities they could work, and who could communicate with them and keep them aware of what was going on around them. Some survived through contact with Righteous Gentiles who helped them hide or obtain false papers. All the survivors appear to have been young, strong, and able to work in the camps or fend for themselves in hiding. Like all survivors of the Holocaust, they sometimes were just lucky. They were persecuted because they were Jews, but their experiences were also shaped by their deafness. The narrative description of their experiences is designed to impose some order and interpretation on the stories the survivors tell. But no narrative can be as poignant and moving as their own words, and for that reason we close this anthology with excerpts from their testimony given in Washington, D.C., in June 1998. ...