Holocaust Memorial Day - Never Forget!

Tomorrow is  Holocaust Memorial Day: "a time to remember those who have been murdered in the Holocaust and under Nazi persecution, in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. On HMD we act to learn the lessons of the past to create a safer, better future."

It's theme this year is Untold Stories. The stories of the disabled and mentally ill people killed by the Nazis have not been told and so many people do not know about what happened. 

Nazi propaganda in the form of posters, news-reels and cinema films portrayed disabled people as "useless eaters" and people who had "lives unworthy of living". The propaganda stressed the high cost of supporting disabled people, and suggested that there was something unhealthy or even unnatural about society paying for this." Ouch

Ouch, the BBC's disability website explains what the Nazis did.

 

As does The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

There isn't a memorial anywhere for the disabled victims of the Nazis but The Chair: Holocaust Memorial to Disabled People is a project to work for memorials across the world.

Resistance a "moving image installation" about the Nazi genocide of disabled people, how some disabled people resisted, and making the connection with current issues such as pre-natal screening and assisted suicide.

Indeed, there is a lot of similarities in how disabled people are being talked about by politicians and in the media in the UK. We are "useless eaters" and cost society "too much". Even those of us who work and pay taxes are faced with increasing difficulties in keeping those jobs as Access to Work is threatened and the Independent Living Fund are axed. and Disability Living Allowance (which helps many disabled people to stay in work) is being scrapped for a more narrow benefit to be called Personal Independence Payment.

Holocaust Memorial Day is not just remembering the past but about learning from the past and taking action. 

Oor Mad History records what mad/mentally ill people in the Lothians have done to change things for the better. Mad people need to go on changing things and challenging the current assumptions about us.  And OMH will record them! 


Never forget!

Collective advocacy might be the term we have come up with but the concept of "a group of people who are all facing a common problem who get together to support each other" is not just found in mental health or other health and social care.

Here is a good example of collective action in housing in Edinburgh in the early 70s from the From There… To Here: The social history of Wester Hailes blog.

Wester Hailes is a huge housing scheme south west of Edinburgh which was built in the late 60s. 4,800 houses and flats but only 1 shops and nothing else. Of course people weren't happy - so the Wester Hailes Association of Tenants (WHAT) was founded.

“ If you were to go along to the Planning Department of the Corporation to say you thought there should be better facilities in Wester Hailes you wouldn’t get any further than a clerk at the front desk”

On their own they are insignificant and ineffectual. But there is another option. The power to demand to be heard can be generated by banding together and speaking with a single, united voice. It all boils down to a simple and stark equation:

“Bodies like the Corporation pay more attention to other bodies than they do to individuals. The bigger the body, the better the attention”

Many people who got involved in the early days made the connection between activism in other areas and their motivation in getting involved in mental health activism.

So in the late 70’s and early 80’s I was involved with politics , campaigning politics, left wing politics, anything-you name it I’d support it. Then I began to get fed up… sort of ‘what’s happened with the people like me?’ so I went to see there was nothing. It was like... there was this hidden thing. We were all supporting gay rights, we were all supporting Northern Irish prisoners, we were all supporting... John MacDonald

and

It really felt as if it was something major happening. It was a movement along with lots of other movements that were very vocal at the time like The Women’s Movement, the Black Movement. It felt like at last, folk were standing up, forming a strong alliance and making strong statements that were going to make societal changes. Be Morris

And today, history in the making, the anti-cuts movement seems to be making connections between trade unionists, students and disabled people to fight against the cuts which will have a huge impact on people with mental health problems throughout the UK.