Surviving Auschwitz: on the sins of being intersex

Having been born and raised in the Netherlands, stories of the horrors committed by the Nazis not only during the occupation of the Netherlands, but also those elsewhere in Europe are something which one grows up with. I also read a lot of (children's) books which covered aspects of this, including of course Anne Frank's diary. Despite this, it wasn't until later that I also became aware of not only Jews having been deported to concentration camps, but also homosexuals, gypsies, 'feeble-minded individuals' and many others. Usually in the name of 'racial purity' and such concepts.

Because of this I wasn't too surprised to learn via a German study [1] that intersex individuals were also dragged into this. The general attitude towards intersex individuals under German National Socialism was that intersex (or 'hermaphrodites' as they were then referred to) people were symptoms of racial impurities, the degenerate result of mixing of races and the like. Advised was to 'normalise' them, but preferably in such a way that they would be infertile, lest they would produce offspring.

Although much of any evidence that may have existed of medical experimentation on intersex people - by Josef Mengele and other Nazi doctors - was very likely destroyed along with other documents as the Soviet Red Army and Allied forces approached, the remaining evidence shows that such experiments were very likely performed. Possibly along the lines of the twin experiments and on individuals with specific conditions, such as dwarfism.


What caught me by surprise was that even exposure to brief snippets of this work would provoke an incredibly intense traumatic emotional response in me. Considering the many years of having dealt with reading through unpleasant texts on the topic of intersex, I had not expected this. Yet, just a bit of this paper has so far managed to completely emotionally destabilise me for days straight on three occasions. Especially the first day immediately after initial exposure I feel beset by sadness, hopelessness and frustration, finding myself unable to stop crying.

Clearly there's something about this work that manages to trigger a traumatic PTSD callback in a way that rarely happens in such an extreme manner. But why a historical work? After all, I wasn't deported to Auschwitz, did not undergo those medical experiments and didn't spend years facing the inevitable demise of myself and everyone around me for years as we suffered through one day after another. So what's the similarity?

Having spent a few months thinking about it, I am quite certain that much of the issue lies in that although the phrasing of how one used to talk about intersex people in the 1930s and 1940s, and how people talk about intersex people today has changed, the underlying meaning and implications has not. For example:

• 'Symptom of racial impurity' turned into 'biological flukes'.
• 'Correcting intersex cases' became 'normalisation of genitals'.
• Justification changed from 'racial purity' to 'ensuring happiness of an intersex child by not appearing different'. [2]
• 'degenerate being' became 'disorder of sex development'.

Over the past years, I have expressed on many occasions (e.g. [3]) the feeling of being a part of medical experiments, rather than being treated as a patient by doctors. My diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder appears to have strong roots in these experiences [4]. It feels as though I have been subjected to human experimentation involving the 'normalisation' of an intersex person. Try different brainwashing and other methods, see what sticks. Even if this may have been done out of ignorance rather than as a wilful experiment. [5]


So then, the upsetting thing about Ms Klöppel's article then appears to be that it rams home the point that nothing has really changed between 1933 and 2020? At least at a cursory glance it does appear that way. It explains the intense traumatic response, provoking more intense and longer lasting PTSD flashbacks than I can recall having experienced before.

It's possible that what makes it so much more intense is the accompanying realisation that if things haven't really progressed in the past eighty years when it comes to treating intersex individuals like full human beings with their own will and desires, then why would they change in the coming years or decades? Cue hopelessness and depression.


This is not a pleasant topic. It is also not a topic which I enjoy dealing with today. As much as I have come to accept my own body [6], I cannot accept my circumstances. I cannot accept the way that society treats me and others like me [7].

It appears that today's society has a lot more introspection and soul-searching to do. Because clearly intersex folk like yours truly are not a cause of society's woes, just as we weren't back in in the 1930s.


Maya



[1] Ulrike Kloeppel - Intersex under National Socialism http://mayaposch.com/literature_intersex.php
[2] The Intersex Controversy http://mayaposch.com/intersex-controversy.php
[3] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2015/06/for-what-am-i-but-medical-experiment.html
[4] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-eternal-war.html
[5] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/01/erasure-of-intersex-identity-through.html
[6] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-five-stages-towards-accepting-ones.html
[7] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/societys-attitude-towards-intersex-is.html

Nationalism and its utter disregard for people

At the end of the second World War, people in Europe were forced to confront the toll of centuries of unchecked nationalism, amidst the ruins of Europe's nations. During these centuries, alliances had been forged and broken again between Europe's nations. Wars had been waged, whether to gain land, influence, or for religious reasons, a combination of which led to Spain, France and England almost constantly waging war against each other.

Europe's nations were forged amidst this conflict, each nation liberally drenched in blood while protecting itself against its neighbours. This reached a bloody climax as technology made war ever more destructive and large-scale, culminating in the First and then Second World War. As the British and Ottoman Empires crumbled, and Europe struggled to come to terms with its own identity after those two bloody wars, people rightfully blamed Nationalism.


Nationalism is the belief that one's own country and culture are superior to all others. This was extremely apparent in the NSDAP's move towards segregating Germany's and ultimately the world's inhabitants into the superior and inferior, with Nazi Germany itself portrayed as the ultimate homeland which would bring light and justice to the rest of the world.

Yet today's Nationalism is practically the same. From the UK's UKIP, to Front National in France, the AfD and NPD in Germany and the many other nationalistic parties elsewhere in Europe, their focus is the same: to regain the superior independence of their respective country, they first have to destroy all unity between countries. The reason for this is simple: unity and cooperation does not exist in Nationalism, except between those fortunate enough to be part of the superior race.

This leads to the rather obvious notion that Nationalism - being a blind idealism - has no regard for nuances such as human rights or the plight of individuals. For why would they? The superiority of their country and its culture is self-evident. Everybody is just expected to fall into line at that point, or risk being branded an Enemy of the State.

Here history throws up the countless examples of how Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Communistic China, Imperial Japan and various incarnations of the USA dealt with those who refused to fall into line, whether incarceration, execution or worse. They are the dystopian scenarios which we prefer to associate with parts of human history which we will never visit again.


Yet amidst unchecked Nationalism in the UK, France, the Netherlands, the USA and countless other countries, the arguments offered by the supporters of this new Nationalism - that they are not just a fresh incarnation of the same Nationalism that pushed Europe into two world wars - sound very hollow as the same xenophobic, isolationist and nationalistic statements are uttered.

In the 1920s and 1930s it was the large influx of refugees and immigrants from the Middle East which provided welcome fuel for the NSDAP's campaign to take back the country and restore Germany's pride as a nation. While a significant number of Germans and other Europeans expressed their concerns at this, with some leaving Europe for the USA and elsewhere, ultimately they could not stop the ultimately unstoppable rush into the destructive insanity of another world war and the genocide of all of those who did not fit the profile of the superior race.


Amidst the ruins of Europe's nations in the late 1940s and during the poor 1950s, the phrase 'Never again' was on everybody's lips. It was clear to most that the only way to fight Nationalism was to strive for unity and cooperation between Europe's nations. Differences should be settled amicably in meeting rooms instead of with trade wars, skirmishes and outright war.

This realisation led to the formation of the UN, NATO, the EEC and ultimately the EU. While not a universally shared feeling among Europeans, the formation of the European Union has led to a new awareness. An awareness which is not bound to a singular nation, but to Europe itself, as an inhabitant of the EU. With especially younger generations making grateful use of freedom of travel and the freedom to study, live and work anywhere within the EU, for the first time in Europe's history national borders stand to become irrelevant.

The loss of national identity - while a settled matter for many - is a frightening prospect for many others, thus providing the fertile ground for Nationalism. It's a loss more frightening than the utter incompetence of one's national government, and thus easily exploited by the unscrupulous.


When the people of Germany saw themselves - in their eyes unfairly - condemned to a life of poverty with no hope for a better future thanks to the Paris Peace Treaty after the First World War, they embraced the hope being offered by the nationalistic NSDAP. One could ask there whether they voted for the wrong party, or what else they could have done. If the NSDAP had not won the elections, then they would have paid reparations until into the 1980s with no standing army and no heavy industry.

One could say that the nationalistic attitudes of the UK and France when they drafted that peace treaty played into the Nationalism that was just waiting for a chance in Austria and Germany. Pessimistically one could say that the Allied forces set Europe up for a new world war because they could not be bothered to consider the human cost of the treaty Germany was forced to sign.


Moving back to present day Europe, one has to severely question the wisdom of breaking unity and cooperation, and assuming that one will be better off alone. There is nothing in history which might suggest that going at it alone is wise unless you are for example drowning in oil and everybody wants to be your best friend as a result.

Nationalism does not make money. It does not grow food or provide clean water to the population. It's a destructive fantasy which cannot and will not take reality or history into account. It is the pinnacle of political delusions. At some point reality does have to be acknowledged, with the harsh, cold light of truth showing that no country is better than another, and the thought of a superior culture or race merely terrible hubris.


While being painfully aware of the historical context of Nationalism, I find that at this point that I and many others with me can only hope that humanity has in fact learned from history and that we can keep up that promise we made, so many decades ago: "Never again".


Maya