Longtime Gally administrator passes

image from Gallaudet Archives

A Gallaudet University administrator and scholar who wrote and edited books about deaf people during the Holocaust and the portrayal of deaf people on-screen, has died of cancer. John Schuchman was 79 years old. A CODA, Dr. Schuchman's first language was ASL. He wrote  Hollywood Speaks: Deafness and the Film Entertainment Industry as well as Deaf People in Hitler’s Europe. Read more about him from the Gallaudet website here and from the Washington Post here. During his 34 years at Gallaudet, he served as a dean, vice president of academic affairs and provost.

Remembering... the Holocaust

An estimated 25,000 deaf Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust. Less than two dozen deaf survivors are left today. Unlike other persecuted groups in the Holocaust, the deaf did not have a specific identity badge. About 17,500 deaf Germans were sterilized between 1933 and 1945.

Deaf Holocaust

After finishing a four-month fellowship at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, Mark Zaurov is speaking about the Deaf Holocaust in talks around the U.S. Zaurov is deaf himself and is a Ph.D candidate at Germany's University of Hamburg. Besides looking into what life was like in Germany for the deaf before WW II, he has researched newspapers published by and for the Deaf, the relationship between Deaf Jews and Deaf Germans, and the changes that occurred with Hitler's rise to power. Read more about Zaurov and his work here.