ROCKET Project’s 2016 Overseas Study TourAttending Cybathlon and visiting Auschwitz to think about human beings, handicaps, and the idea of eugenics

Six students, ranging from 6th to 10th grade who are enrolled in the ROCKET Project for talented children, took part in an overseas study tour from October 6 to 9 to Switzerland, Germany, and Poland. The group attended the Cybathlon event in Zurich, and toured the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland and the Hadamar psychiatric hospital in Germany, which was used by Nazi Germany as a euthanasia center for people with disabilities during World War II. The purpose of the trip was to encourage the students to think about a range of issues including disabilities and the idea of eugenics. The project announced the study tour in September and collected applications based on the theme of “Thinking about modern civilization while touring Cybathlon and Auschwitz.” Of the 28 project participants (“scholars”), 12 submitted applications explaining why they wanted to participate and what they wanted to learn. Four scholars who joined the program in its first year and two who joined in the second year were chosen.

The Cybathlon is an event in which athletes with physical impairments use the latest robotics and other technologies to compete in terms of speed and accuracy. This was the first time the event was held, and 66 teams from more than 20 countries competed. Three teams from Japan participated with support from The Nippon Foundation. The scholars, some of whom want to become scientists or engineers, were transfixed by the cutting-edge technologies on display.

Next, the scholars toured the Auschwitz concentration camp near Krakow in southern Poland, where more than one million, mostly Jewish, people were killed by Nazi Germany during World War II between 1940 and 1945.

As they toured the grounds, the scholars asked the local guide about Maximilian Kolbe, a priest who volunteered to die in the place of another inmate, and the chemicals used in the gas chamber. After the tour, the guide commented that the scholars asked questions that adults had not and he was hard-pressed for answers, and that he wished he had more time to talk with them.

Located on a hill in Hadamar, a town of 12,000 people in west-central Germany, this is the site where more than 10,000 people with intellectual and physical disabilities were deemed “incurable” under the Aktion 4 euthanasia program, and executed in a gas chamber during January to August 1941. Today the hospital houses a memorial with pictures of the victims and the preserved underground gas chamber, operating table, and crematorium.

ROCKET Project for Talented Children