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Crying Hands: The Deaf Experience under Nazi Oppression

Public Program
Speech lessons by palpation of the larynx in the Israelite Deaf-Mute Institution Berlin-Weissensee, Berlin, 1934. Photograph by Herbert Sonnenfeld. Jewish Museum Berlin, Inv.-No. FOT 88/500/1/002, purchased with funds provided by Stiftung DKLB

Speech lessons by palpation of the larynx in the Israelite Deaf-Mute Institution Berlin-Weissensee, Berlin, 1934. Photograph by Herbert Sonnenfeld. Jewish Museum Berlin, Inv.-No. FOT 88/500/1/002, purchased with funds provided by Stiftung DKLB

The deaf community’s experience is a neglected chapter in Holocaust history. Deaf Jews suffered the same fate as hearing Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe: discrimination, persecution, deportation, and mass murder. Along with deaf Germans, they were further targeted under Nazi policy. Some were forcibly sterilized and many were unable to emigrate because of their perceived disability.

The Museum’s Deaf Victims of Nazi Persecution and the Holocaust Initiative is committed to preserving and telling the stories of deaf survivors. Join us for a special program on the deaf experience during the Holocaust era with a Museum archivist and curator, along with the producers of an independently run traveling exhibition, In Der Nacht, which captured deaf survivors’ accounts in the late 1980s. A question-and-answer session with the audience will follow the program.

Speakers
Michelle Baron and Marla Petal, Executive Producers, All the People

James Gilmore, Archives Specialist, National Institute for Holocaust Documentation, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Suzy Snyder, Curator, National Institute for Holocaust Documentation, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Opening Remarks
Marla Eglash Abraham, Director, Western Regional Office, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

This program is free and open to the public but reservations are required.

For more information, please contact the Western Regional Office at 310.556.3222 or western@ushmm.org.

Co-presented with All the People

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