We know how it ended. But we always seem to forget how it began.
It ended with liberation and the end of war. It ended with Nuremberg and the promise of “Never again!”
But it began with kinder euthanasia–the supposed mercy killing of children. The Holocaust Encyclopedia (HE) calls the program “a rehearsal for Nazi Germany’s subsequent genocidal policies.” A program we remember.
First, they came for infants and toddlers with severe mental or physical disabilities. No one else spoke up for they were not among the targeted.
Then they came for disabled children up to the age of seventeen, then to the physically disabled and elderly (HE). The weak of any age. Those who were not weak did not speak up.
We remember that they later came for the Jews and the gypsies, for the little boys with fear in their eyes and their hands in the air. And then it was too late to speak up, although some tried.
Why do we forget how it began? Forgetting means it can happen again.
And now England has come back to it–all on its own, without those who came, without German Nazis.
The situation is rich with irony. England who braced herself against the Blitz, who steeled herself in expectation of being occupied by those who came.
But now England cannot see herself in the mirror.
And unlike Nazi Germany, England does not have to search out the weak. They come to her, asking for medical care.
England does not have to shoot or gas. She simply withholds treatment and lets nature take its course.
England’s Nazis don’t wear brown shirts or black boots. They wear white coats. They are called caregivers.
They thought Charlie Gard was not worthy of their care. He would never hold a job. He would only cost them money.
A “health care system” that has lost its heart and soul reverts to killing.
And once more we have forgotten how it begins.
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