Going after disabled and mentally ill people was actually the first step for the Nazis, long before anyone was talking about death camps for particular ethnicities or sexual orientations. A disabled child, in July 1939, was arguably the first person deliberately killed in an organized and “legal” fashion during what would eventually mutate and grow, and become the holocaust.
Plenty of people have died in ICE custody since this started. If you hear from people who have visited and seen the conditions, it’s pretty clear why. The camps in Germany were the same: A lot of the deaths weren’t “on purpose” but just the natural outcome of conditions so harsh that they can’t sustain the basic functions that are necessary for life.
The camps were already running in 1939, probably some people had died “not on purpose” by then. Gerhard Kretschmar was just notable because he was the first one “on purpose.”
In his decree on July 24 2025, he made it easier to pick up and detain homeless people.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5479139/trump-homelessness-executive-order-civil-commitment-camping
It also mentions drug users and the mentally ill. They’ll be next on the list to go into the concentration camps.
And “mentally ill” is open to interpretation. They’re already on record for saying being trans or gay is an illness.
Going after disabled and mentally ill people was actually the first step for the Nazis, long before anyone was talking about death camps for particular ethnicities or sexual orientations. A disabled child, in July 1939, was arguably the first person deliberately killed in an organized and “legal” fashion during what would eventually mutate and grow, and become the holocaust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4
What’s scary is I’ll bet we’ve already passed the ‘first victim’ of this regime, and it will likely be decades before we can say who it was.
Plenty of people have died in ICE custody since this started. If you hear from people who have visited and seen the conditions, it’s pretty clear why. The camps in Germany were the same: A lot of the deaths weren’t “on purpose” but just the natural outcome of conditions so harsh that they can’t sustain the basic functions that are necessary for life.
The camps were already running in 1939, probably some people had died “not on purpose” by then. Gerhard Kretschmar was just notable because he was the first one “on purpose.”