During the 1900s, the idea of the Gene was making its way into popular consciousness. This idea had its roots all the way back to Charles Darwin, who found that species evolved but was unable to explain how.
As the idea of genes took root, so did the idea that some people had bad genes and some people good ones.
It was assumed that those who were prone to diseases such as epilepsy were perhaps suffering the results of having bad genes. The idea soon emerged that if such individuals were taken out of the gene pool, bluntly put, if such people could be sterilised, the future generations would be better off and would not have to suffer these faults. This gave birth to the field of eugenics.
Genes were also considered responsible for shortcomings and immoral behaviour. In the US, such people were considered feebleminded. Feebleminded people were also categorised into three categories. Stupid, Imbecile and Moron.
A Stupid was a person with a mental age of less than 35 months.
Imbeciles and Morons had a much more fluid definition. Essentially, people found to be engaging in indecency, prostitution, etc, which could not be harshly punished by the law, fell into this category.
In the US, in 1910, the idea of separating the feebleminded took root. A colony was created at Lynchburg, Virginia, where these feebleminded were taken to live. It was a Hotel California that you could check into, but you could not get out of.
The colony was authorised by a 1906 bill written by eugenicist and social welfare advocate Aubrey Strode, in collaboration with eugenicists Albert Priddy and Joseph DeJarnette. The colony received its first patients in 1911 and by the end of the calendar year had more than 150 men who suffered from epilepsy, a condition of social abhorrence. Colonies like the Virginia State Colony had been established in order to separate the disabled from criminal populations, for example, many of the first inhabitants of the Virginia State Colony had previously been housed in prisons and state hospitals. Originally, only men could be patients of the colony, but after roughly one year of operation, superintendent Priddy allowed women into the colony who were diagnosed as feeble-minded.
Source: Wikipedia
The institution underwent several rounds of rebranding but was finally shut down in 2020.
When Hitler was being released from prison after the Beer Hall Putsch, a lady by the name of Carrie Buck arrived at Lynchburg, and she was the subject of a court battle over the legality of the state go Virginia to sterilise her. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided that it was legal for the state of Virginia to sterilise Ms Buck.
While the sterilisation program at Lynchburg continued till 1956, the eugenicists involved there also marvelled at how efficiently Hitler was pushing the idea of the purity of the race. The idea of segregating and doing away with individuals with poor genetics appealed to many of them.
The concentration camps run by the Nazis were explicitly run with the idea of killing people with a particular gene. Or rather, killing all those who did not possess Aryan genetics.
Hence,
Geno ~ referring to a or belonging to a gene; and
-cide ~ denoting a person a substance that kills.
We got Genocide.