Professor: David Mitchell
Department: English
Title: Disposable Humanity (feature-length documentary film)
Description: “Disposable Humanity” consists of three story strands that
create a braid across history and culture in relationship to disabled people
and their treatment in Nazi Germany during World War II and into the present.
The film will: 1) document the Nazi medical mass murder of 300,000+ “mental
patients” in psychiatric institutions (referred to as Aktion T4); 2)
examine the growing efforts in Germany and elsewhere (including the United
States, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, and Italy) to commemorate and
memorialize the victims; 3) explore the history of our personal family
journeys undertaken as disabled people to visit these memorial sites since
the late 1990s. Thus, the planned film will interweave history, culture, and
disability experience into its effort to make visible a forgotten and/or
erased aspect of Holocaust history.
Duties: Research assistants will assist with tracking down key historical
documents, photos, film clips, permissions related to the illustration of key
documentary film themes, topics, and interview b-roll materials. Each
assistant will be given a key theme to track down the best illustrative
documents — for instance, one RA might watch all of the propaganda films
created around the sterilizations and, ultimately, murder of disabled people
institutionalization during World War II, select best clips to illustrate
ideas, and track down appropriate permissions related to the use of desired
materials in the final documentary film. Another student would transcribe
remaining interview transcripts and analyze the interview discussions with
respect to key themes covered (grass roots preservation of historical T4
locations, selection process, memorialization efforts, reparations advocacy
efforts, etc.). A third RA would research key documents such as photos of
Himmler visiting the first gassing facility at Poznan, Poland, Medical
meldobogen forms for gassing selections in Berlin, biographical victim data
available on websites (for example, gedenkort-T4.com; YadVashem.org),
physician and medical personnel trial transcripts and photos/film, etc. The
objective is to employ students in important archival work that goes into the
crafting of a feature-length film documentary
Number of Openings: 3
Time commitment: 4-6 hours per week (average)
Credit hour option*: 2
Submit Cover Letter/Resume to: dtmitchel@gwu.edu
*If credit is sought, all registration deadlines and requirements must be
met. Students selected to be research assistants should contact Brianna
Crayton (bcrayton@gwu.edu) whether they intend to pursue credit or not.
