Category: concentration camps

The ‘Minimum Wage’ as a way to make ‘defectives stand out’ for possible eugenic selection, 1913

Henry R. Seager, “The Minimum Wage as Part of a Program for Social Reform.” 1913. [SOURCE] As the enumeration of these benefits suggests, important reform to accompany minimum wage be comprehensive provision for industrial and trade education vocational guidance. Starvation wages are due frequently to exploitation, frequently to physical, mental and moral defects in the …

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Eugenics Quote of the Day: ‘Put the Defectives in a Camp and Drown Them’, W.S. Main, Wisconsin State Senator

W.S. Main, Wisconsin state senator, speaking in 1890, as found in “Criminals and their Treatment”, in Proceedings of the Wisconsin Conference for 1890. Quoted in “Wisconsin Magazine of History, Spring 1960. If all these [hereditary criminals] could be marshalled into one great camp and with a mill stone around each of their necks, cast into …

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Josef Mengele and creating a human super-race, as though you were breeding horses

As quoted in Mengele: The Complete Story by Gerald L. Posner and John Ware (1986) on page 43: … [Josef] Mengele’s main aim, as interpreted by Dr. Puzyna, the inmate anthropologist, was wholly unscientific: I found Mengele a picture of what can only be described as a maniac.  He turned the truth on its head.  …

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The Lethal Chamber Proposal, 1930 Letter to Editor by Dr. Richard Berry

A little known fact is that those with a eugenics mindset had been talking about ‘lethal chambers’ and ‘segregation camps’ for a long time before the Nazis actually used them.  Here is one example. The Lethal Chamber Proposal To the Editor, Eugenics Review   SIR,-I observe in your issue of April 1930, page 6, that you …

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The Roots of the Concentration Camp Were American and British Eugenicists, Not Nazis

For what its worth, the very idea of the ‘concentration camp’ was as much American and British, if not more, as it was Nazi Germany.  These ‘segregation’ camps were seen as humane and hygienic ways to prevent the breeding of ‘defective stock.’  Quotes from Eugenicists discussing such camps are provided below.  No attempt is made …

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Abortion as Eugenics Directed at Black People, Bedroom Politics, Francis Beal

What is below was compiled and produced by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel in their Before Roe v. Wade:  Voices that shaped the abortion debate before the Supreme Court’s ruling.  The ellipses reflect deletions by those authors.  Anyone who can locate the full, unabridged text, is kindly asked to contact the administrators of this …

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The Obstacle of Sentiment and Sentimentalists to Pure Scientific Application

One of the common themes that surfaces in eugenic writings is their annoyance that others do not act on the logical implications of Science.  Note that, in the main, they are not taking issue with people who do not agree with their conclusions, but rather those who do agree–but will not act on them.  This …

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