Session 7a: Workshop - A World without Bodies: Nazi Euthanasia Programs and the Deviant Body

David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder
Program in Disability Studies, Department of Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60608-626

Shot on location at the Psychiatric Krankenhaus in Bernberg, Germany, A World Without Bodies documents the horror of the Nazi regime with respect to its treatment of disabled people. Beginning with an overview of American and European Eugenics ideology, Snyder and Mitchell's film explores the instruments of mass murder developed first on the bodies of people with disabilities and later transferred to concentration camps. The video provides a haunting glimpse into the medical and social mindset that led to the systematic slaughter of more than 240,000 individuals at the outset of World War 2. The documentary ultimately asks us to contemplate the impact of these events on our attitudes toward disability today.