Nazi eugenics and the year of the vuvuzela

Published: Sept. 22, 2023, 11:30 p.m.

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Max Pearson presents a collection of this week\\u2019s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We hear about the people with disabilities who were sterilised in Germany following an order in 1933, passed by the then Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

Also, we find out about the first man to descend into the \\u201cGates of Hell\\u201d, the Darvaza Crater, in Turkmenistan.

Plus the story behind the vuvuzela which was dubbed the \\u201cworld\\u2019s most annoying instrument\\u201d.

Contributors:\\nHelga Gross who was sterilised in Germany as part of the Nazis\\u2019 eugenics order. This is an archive interview from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.\\nDr Susanne Klausen, Julia Gregg Brill Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University.\\nCampaigner Emma Bonino who fought for legal abortion in Italy.\\nExplorer George Kourounis who was the first person to descend into the Darvaza Crater, in Turkmenistan.\\nParamedic Daniel Ouma who helped people injured in the Westgate Mall terror attack, in Nairobi, in Kenya, in 2013.\\nFreddie 'Saddam' Maake who claims to have invented the vuvuzela.

(Photo: Adolf Hitler. Credit: Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

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