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BBC NEWS | UK | Nazis' disabled victims honoured

The one million disabled people who were persecuted, sterilised or killed by Nazi Germany are to be commemorated in the UK's first such memorial.

Several survivors are expected to attend Sunday's event at the Holocaust Centre in Newark, Nottinghamshire.

A rose and plaque will be dedicated in the centre's rose garden to the memory of the murdered disabled people.

The centre's Stephen Smith said there had been "little recognition" of the persecution the disabled suffered.

Up to 270,000 disabled people died in the Holocaust. Six major killing centres for the disabled were set up around Germany.

'Largely untold'

Mr Smith said: "While discrimination against those with disability is outlawed in our society, we must work together to counter the prejudice that remains.

"Hitler's propaganda minister suffered from polio, and yet he still drove a media machine that contributed to the persecution of a million deaf and disabled people."

One of the few blind Jewish children to survive the war, Hans Cohn - now 85 - will be at the dedication.

He avoided the Holocaust by escaping to the UK.

He said: "The disabled suffered doubly under the Nazi regime if they were Jewish."

Actress Kim Tserkezie, who appears in CBBC's Balamory programme, said she was "compelled" to attend because disabled people's experiences of the Holocaust "have gone largely untold".

She said: "We owe it to all those people who were persecuted, forcibly sterilised, or murdered to remember them and pay tribute to them.

"We must not forget their experiences, which are not only part of our past, but are important in helping us understand the prejudices and discrimination we as disabled people experience today."