WEBVTT
00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:09.519
I'm Alexander Freeman, and this has been Remaking Normal.
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:11.279
Episode 10.
00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:19.760
Disposable Humanity, a documentary about how dehumanization was considered normal and the urgent need not to repeat history.
00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:26.000
When I think about culture, history, or even filmmaking, I always come back to one question.
00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:27.679
What is normal?
00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:29.600
And who gets to decide?
00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.520
Because history teaches us something deeply uncomfortable.
00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:40.159
Some of the most violent and dehumanizing behavior humanity has ever justified was once considered normal.
00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:42.719
It was institutionalized.
00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:44.479
It was bureaucratic.
00:00:44.719 --> 00:00:48.719
It was defended as practical, efficient, and even compassionate.
00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:50.640
That's why this matters.
00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:59.039
I want to talk about the documentary Disposable Humanity, a film that confronts one of the most overlooked truths of the Holocaust.
00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:03.840
Disabled people were among the first groups targeted by the Nazi regime.
00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:06.239
This is not just a documentary.
00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:08.000
It is a warning.
00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:11.760
Because what this film shows us is not confined to the past.
00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:23.040
The conditions that made this history possible are resurfacing right now, in language, in policy, and in the way certain lives are discussed, dismissed, and erased.
00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:28.319
As someone who is disabled and Jewish, this film doesn't live at a distance from me.
00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:34.400
It lives in my body, in my history, and in the way I move through the world today.
00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:39.439
It also connects directly to the questions I've been asking in my own work as a filmmaker.
00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:52.640
In my documentary True Value, which is narrated by Oscar winner Chris Cooper and is available on Kinema for film screenings or to stream, I focus on employment, but more fundamentally, on human value.
00:01:52.959 --> 00:01:59.280
True value asks a question that sits beneath wages, hiring practices, and productivity.
00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:03.680
Who gets to decide the value and worth of a human life?
00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:07.760
That is the same question disposable humanity confronts.
00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:12.400
Just at a different moment in history and with even higher stakes.
00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:16.319
One film looks at exclusion and devaluation in the present.
00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:20.800
The other shows us where that thinking can lead when it is left unchecked.
00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:32.719
Disposable Humanity centers on Action T4, the Nazi program that systematically murdered disabled people under the language of medical care, efficiency, and so-called mercy.
00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:39.199
What the film makes impossible to ignore is that this violence did not begin with chaos or secrecy.
00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:48.000
It began with language, with policy, with doctors and institutions reframing murder as treatment and human beings as burdens.
00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:53.280
At the time this was presented as modern, scientific, responsible.
00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:56.879
That's where the question of normal becomes unavoidable.
00:02:57.120 --> 00:02:59.680
How does cruelty get reframed as care?
00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:03.520
How does bureaucracy make violence feel acceptable?
00:03:04.319 --> 00:03:06.319
The film is directed by Cameron S.
00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:10.000
Mitchell, and this is not a detached historical project.
00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:20.400
This film grew out of a long, deeply personal, multigenerational investigation into Action T4 and the deliberate exclusion of disabled victims from Holocaust memory.
00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:28.319
His process involved years of archival research, travel to former killing centers, and engagement with memorial institutions.
00:03:28.879 --> 00:03:33.759
What stands out to me about his work is that he doesn't treat history as finished.
00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:39.599
He treats it as something that must be actively recovered, protected, and re-examined.
00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:47.199
This is a filmmaker willing to sit with discomfort, to ask why some victims are remembered and others erased.
00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:52.159
Disposable humanity does not reduce disabled victims to numbers or symbols.
00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:56.159
The film brings us into former action T4 killing centers.
00:03:56.400 --> 00:04:00.080
It includes conversations with historians and memorial directors.
00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:04.319
It reflects on how these sites are remembered or avoided.
00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:06.800
I want to speak very personally here.
00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:16.800
Being disabled means I have spent my life being seen over and over again, as weak, as a burden, as someone whose needs are inconvenient.
00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:21.759
It means having my worth questioned in subtle ways and overt ways.
00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:26.160
It means being talked over, dismissed, infantilized.
00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:30.560
It means being made to feel like my existence requires justification.
00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:46.720
And yes, it also means that at times I've been treated with abuse, not always physical, often emotional, sometimes systemic, sometimes quiet enough that others don't notice, but loud enough that it stays with you.
00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:58.000
Being Jewish means carrying a historical memory of what happens when societies decide that certain people are problems to be managed, instead of human beings to be protected.
00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:05.360
What disposable humanity makes brutally clear is that ableism and antisemitism are not separate histories.
00:05:05.680 --> 00:05:09.839
They intersected in Nazi Germany, and they still intersect now.
00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:12.879
The genocide did not start with camps.
00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:19.759
It started with ideas, with language, with policies, with the normalization of cruelty.
00:05:20.079 --> 00:05:22.959
That is why this film is not just about the past.
00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:32.560
This film holds a deeply personal place for me because I had the honor of being selected alongside Cameron at the Slam Dance Film Festival with my documentary, My Own Normal.
00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:37.120
Standing beside this film reaffirmed something I deeply believe.
00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:39.360
These stories are not marginal.
00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:40.959
They are essential.
00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:45.519
History does not repeat itself exactly, but it echoes.
00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:57.680
What concerns me, and what this film helps us recognize, is how easily societies normalize harm when it is framed as efficiency, cost saving, or inevitability.
00:05:57.920 --> 00:06:11.759
We see it when disabled lives are debated in terms of expense, when care is framed as burden, when antisemitism is treated as background noise, when dehumanizing rhetoric is dismissed as just politics.
00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:15.680
So we have to ask, when did this become normal?
00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:17.680
Why do we tolerate it?
00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:20.639
Who benefits when we stop questioning it?
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:26.399
You should watch disposable humanity because it restores disabled people to Holocaust history.
00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:30.240
Not as an afterthought, but as a central truth.
00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:34.800
You should watch it because it challenges how genocide is remembered and taught.
00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:39.920
And you should watch it because asking what is normal is not philosophical.
00:06:40.079 --> 00:06:41.680
It is survival.
00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:44.639
If this moved you, here's what I'm asking you to do.
00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:51.279
Go to disposablehumanity.com to learn more about the film, its mission, and how to watch or support it.
00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:59.920
Host a screening at a school, synagogue, community center, library, disability organization, or workplace.
00:07:00.240 --> 00:07:03.040
This film belongs in public conversation.
00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:11.040
Follow at Disposable Humanity Movie on Instagram to help amplify this story and ensure it reaches the people who need to see it.
00:07:11.279 --> 00:07:14.720
And most importantly, talk about it.
00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:17.839
Challenge what gets labeled as normal.
00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:20.399
Refuse silence.
00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:23.759
Disposable humanity reminds us of something essential.
00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:28.959
The most dangerous thing a society can do is decide that cruelty is normal.
00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:36.000
As a disabled Jewish person and as a filmmaker, I need people to understand that history doesn't begin with violence.
00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:40.319
It begins with permission, and this film refuses to give it.
00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:54.560
The people you'll hear on this podcast and the stories they share remind us that normal isn't a rule to follow.
00:07:54.800 --> 00:08:02.399
It's something personal, something evolving, something we create every time we choose to be real.
00:08:02.879 --> 00:08:17.199
If you've been inspired by these conversations, make sure to subscribe to Remaking Normal wherever you listen to podcasts and to the Outcast Productions LLC YouTube channel for films and more.
00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:21.920
Follow me on Instagram at real Alexander Freeman.
00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:34.399
You can also visit my own normalmovie.com to learn more about my documentary My Own Normal and explore Outcast Dash Productions.com and consider working together on a film.
00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:40.960
Thank you for listening, for feeling, and for being part of this journey.
00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:44.639
Together, we're remaking normal.
00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:09.519
I'm Alexander Freeman, and this has been Remaking Normal.
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:11.279
Episode 10.
00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:19.760
Disposable Humanity, a documentary about how dehumanization was considered normal and the urgent need not to repeat history.
00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:26.000
When I think about culture, history, or even filmmaking, I always come back to one question.
00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:27.679
What is normal?
00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:29.600
And who gets to decide?
00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.520
Because history teaches us something deeply uncomfortable.
00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:40.159
Some of the most violent and dehumanizing behavior humanity has ever justified was once considered normal.
00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:42.719
It was institutionalized.
00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:44.479
It was bureaucratic.
00:00:44.719 --> 00:00:48.719
It was defended as practical, efficient, and even compassionate.
00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:50.640
That's why this matters.
00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:59.039
I want to talk about the documentary Disposable Humanity, a film that confronts one of the most overlooked truths of the Holocaust.
00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:03.840
Disabled people were among the first groups targeted by the Nazi regime.
00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:06.239
This is not just a documentary.
00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:08.000
It is a warning.
00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:11.760
Because what this film shows us is not confined to the past.
00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:23.040
The conditions that made this history possible are resurfacing right now, in language, in policy, and in the way certain lives are discussed, dismissed, and erased.
00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:28.319
As someone who is disabled and Jewish, this film doesn't live at a distance from me.
00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:34.400
It lives in my body, in my history, and in the way I move through the world today.
00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:39.439
It also connects directly to the questions I've been asking in my own work as a filmmaker.
00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:52.640
In my documentary True Value, which is narrated by Oscar winner Chris Cooper and is available on Kinema for film screenings or to stream, I focus on employment, but more fundamentally, on human value.
00:01:52.959 --> 00:01:59.280
True value asks a question that sits beneath wages, hiring practices, and productivity.
00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:03.680
Who gets to decide the value and worth of a human life?
00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:07.760
That is the same question disposable humanity confronts.
00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:12.400
Just at a different moment in history and with even higher stakes.
00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:16.319
One film looks at exclusion and devaluation in the present.
00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:20.800
The other shows us where that thinking can lead when it is left unchecked.
00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:32.719
Disposable Humanity centers on Action T4, the Nazi program that systematically murdered disabled people under the language of medical care, efficiency, and so-called mercy.
00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:39.199
What the film makes impossible to ignore is that this violence did not begin with chaos or secrecy.
00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:48.000
It began with language, with policy, with doctors and institutions reframing murder as treatment and human beings as burdens.
00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:53.280
At the time this was presented as modern, scientific, responsible.
00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:56.879
That's where the question of normal becomes unavoidable.
00:02:57.120 --> 00:02:59.680
How does cruelty get reframed as care?
00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:03.520
How does bureaucracy make violence feel acceptable?
00:03:04.319 --> 00:03:06.319
The film is directed by Cameron S.
00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:10.000
Mitchell, and this is not a detached historical project.
00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:20.400
This film grew out of a long, deeply personal, multigenerational investigation into Action T4 and the deliberate exclusion of disabled victims from Holocaust memory.
00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:28.319
His process involved years of archival research, travel to former killing centers, and engagement with memorial institutions.
00:03:28.879 --> 00:03:33.759
What stands out to me about his work is that he doesn't treat history as finished.
00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:39.599
He treats it as something that must be actively recovered, protected, and re-examined.
00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:47.199
This is a filmmaker willing to sit with discomfort, to ask why some victims are remembered and others erased.
00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:52.159
Disposable humanity does not reduce disabled victims to numbers or symbols.
00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:56.159
The film brings us into former action T4 killing centers.
00:03:56.400 --> 00:04:00.080
It includes conversations with historians and memorial directors.
00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:04.319
It reflects on how these sites are remembered or avoided.
00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:06.800
I want to speak very personally here.
00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:16.800
Being disabled means I have spent my life being seen over and over again, as weak, as a burden, as someone whose needs are inconvenient.
00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:21.759
It means having my worth questioned in subtle ways and overt ways.
00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:26.160
It means being talked over, dismissed, infantilized.
00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:30.560
It means being made to feel like my existence requires justification.
00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:46.720
And yes, it also means that at times I've been treated with abuse, not always physical, often emotional, sometimes systemic, sometimes quiet enough that others don't notice, but loud enough that it stays with you.
00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:58.000
Being Jewish means carrying a historical memory of what happens when societies decide that certain people are problems to be managed, instead of human beings to be protected.
00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:05.360
What disposable humanity makes brutally clear is that ableism and antisemitism are not separate histories.
00:05:05.680 --> 00:05:09.839
They intersected in Nazi Germany, and they still intersect now.
00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:12.879
The genocide did not start with camps.
00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:19.759
It started with ideas, with language, with policies, with the normalization of cruelty.
00:05:20.079 --> 00:05:22.959
That is why this film is not just about the past.
00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:32.560
This film holds a deeply personal place for me because I had the honor of being selected alongside Cameron at the Slam Dance Film Festival with my documentary, My Own Normal.
00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:37.120
Standing beside this film reaffirmed something I deeply believe.
00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:39.360
These stories are not marginal.
00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:40.959
They are essential.
00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:45.519
History does not repeat itself exactly, but it echoes.
00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:57.680
What concerns me, and what this film helps us recognize, is how easily societies normalize harm when it is framed as efficiency, cost saving, or inevitability.
00:05:57.920 --> 00:06:11.759
We see it when disabled lives are debated in terms of expense, when care is framed as burden, when antisemitism is treated as background noise, when dehumanizing rhetoric is dismissed as just politics.
00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:15.680
So we have to ask, when did this become normal?
00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:17.680
Why do we tolerate it?
00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:20.639
Who benefits when we stop questioning it?
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:26.399
You should watch disposable humanity because it restores disabled people to Holocaust history.
00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:30.240
Not as an afterthought, but as a central truth.
00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:34.800
You should watch it because it challenges how genocide is remembered and taught.
00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:39.920
And you should watch it because asking what is normal is not philosophical.
00:06:40.079 --> 00:06:41.680
It is survival.
00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:44.639
If this moved you, here's what I'm asking you to do.
00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:51.279
Go to disposablehumanity.com to learn more about the film, its mission, and how to watch or support it.
00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:59.920
Host a screening at a school, synagogue, community center, library, disability organization, or workplace.
00:07:00.240 --> 00:07:03.040
This film belongs in public conversation.
00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:11.040
Follow at Disposable Humanity Movie on Instagram to help amplify this story and ensure it reaches the people who need to see it.
00:07:11.279 --> 00:07:14.720
And most importantly, talk about it.
00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:17.839
Challenge what gets labeled as normal.
00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:20.399
Refuse silence.
00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:23.759
Disposable humanity reminds us of something essential.
00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:28.959
The most dangerous thing a society can do is decide that cruelty is normal.
00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:36.000
As a disabled Jewish person and as a filmmaker, I need people to understand that history doesn't begin with violence.
00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:40.319
It begins with permission, and this film refuses to give it.
00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:54.560
The people you'll hear on this podcast and the stories they share remind us that normal isn't a rule to follow.
00:07:54.800 --> 00:08:02.399
It's something personal, something evolving, something we create every time we choose to be real.
00:08:02.879 --> 00:08:17.199
If you've been inspired by these conversations, make sure to subscribe to Remaking Normal wherever you listen to podcasts and to the Outcast Productions LLC YouTube channel for films and more.
00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:21.920
Follow me on Instagram at real Alexander Freeman.
00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:34.399
You can also visit my own normalmovie.com to learn more about my documentary My Own Normal and explore Outcast Dash Productions.com and consider working together on a film.
00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:40.960
Thank you for listening, for feeling, and for being part of this journey.
00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:44.639
Together, we're remaking normal.
