Upon their arrival in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, all children under the age of 16 were sent with their mothers to the gas chambers. But in September 1943, the Nazis, who were preparing for the visit of the International Red Cross to the Terezin ghetto, which had been transformed into a model ghetto, came up with a Machiavellian plan: the construction of a model camp for Czech Jews in the very heart of the Birkenau extermination camp, 400 meters from the crematoria.
Synopsis
An exploration into the history and memory of the Nazi medical genocide of disabled people known as Aktion T4, Disposable Humanity details the efforts of the Mitchell family to unearth and reclaim disappearing history by visiting the six T4 killing centers that have been converted into museums, memorials, and in some cases reactivated as institutions for the disabled. The film aims to pursue how audiences disabled and non-disabled alike can access and process this history as well as reincorporate it into our understanding of the Holocaust, the persecution of the disabled, and the contemporary reverberations of eugenics and of the Nazi T4 program.
About the Director
David T. Mitchell and Cameron S. Mitchell make up the father son co-directing duo behind Disposable Humanity. Each of them respectively brings decades of experience in their respective fields, T4 and Disability Studies research being the former’s and Visual
Anthropology and Film Production being the latter’s. Together they form one half of the Mitchell family who collectively have trained and brought dozens of T4 researchers from America to Germany in their efforts to spread awareness and access to the forgotten and often misunderstood history of the Aktion T4 program.
Year
In Production
Director:
David T. Mitchell and Cameron S. Mitchell
Editing:
Rachel Sophia Stewart
Mixing:
Ryan Hammaker
Watch the Trailer
Stills
