Vichy Mentally Ill Patients 'Were Not Murdered'

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 10-17-2003 | Philip Delves

[blam]

Vichy mentally ill patients 'were not murdered'

By Philip Delves Broughton
(Filed: 17/10/2003)

A two-year investigation into the deaths of 50,000 mentally ill patients under France's Vichy regime has found they mostly starved to death, rather than being intentionally killed following the Nazi example.

French historians have argued recently that the Vichy government deliberately created appalling conditions in its asylums as a form of "gentle genocide".

They supported their arguments with horrific reports written by the doctors working in the asylums during the war, describing patients eating their own hands and books, causing stomach ruptures and death.

The latest research by a team of academics in Lyons concluded that the malnutrition was similar to that experienced by all of France during the war.

They argue that if there had been a secret plan to kill the mentally ill there would have been some record of it. In Germany, the murder of the mentally ill was kept top secret but there are still thousands of documents.

[xm177e2]

They argue that if there had been a secret plan to kill the mentally ill there would have been some record of it.

I guess 50,000 corpses aren't enough of a "record."

[Palladin]

More revisionist crap.

The descendants of these death peddlers are hard at work in the Florida hospices.

[CHATTAB]

Somehow, this is not at all surprising, that is, from the French...

[blam]

"Somehow, this is not at all surprising, that is, from the French..."

Yup. They got rid of 15,000 old people this summer.

[Tunehead54]

Yup. They got rid of 15,000 old people this summer.

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Yep. My exact thought - except they'll rewrite it as "The summer of 2003 was so lovely that a number of citizens decided to spend it in heavan"...

;-(

[Mercat]

Does anyone remember the charming old movie called, I think, King of Hearts? The French all flee this French village because they think the Germans are coming. An American soldier is scouting ahead and comes into the city. The only people left are the inhabitants of the local insane asylum. They have taken over the city.

[blam]

"Does anyone remember the charming old movie called, I think, King of Hearts? "

Nah, but you did remind me of the English movie where the blond headed kids took over the town, Village Of The Damned, I believe it was named.

[blam]

[GovernmentShrinker]

The article says the malnutrition among the inmates was similar to that of the rest of the French population during the war. The 50,000 corpses aren't proof of targeted killing of the mentally ill, unless you can point to figures on how many "corpses" the rest of the French population produced during the same period, and show a per capita discrepancy.

[LadyDoc]

they slowly starved to death...oh that makes me feel so much better....Sarcasm

[LadyDoc]

re malnutrition deaths in mentally ill versus "normal" civilians.

The number of civilian casualties in France 1940-45 is estimated between 150 and 350 thousand out of a population of approximately 40 million.

Source:http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/ww2stats.htm#France

so there seems to be an excess of deaths in such institutions suggesting deliberate neglect.

The German T4 project was terminated because of civilian complaints to the government about loved ones being killed, so the Germans also used indirect killing to rid themselves of the mentally ill and retarded...Lifton's book on Nazi Doctors goes into this, as do other holocaust books...