The Lynchburg story.

Although much is known about Hitler's attempts at using eugenics as a means of achieving racial purity, less is known about the American project which inspired him. Between 1920 and 1972 eugenic sterilisation for the 'feeble minded' in America led to the sterilisation of more than 70,000 peple, some as young as 11-years-old. This documentary focuses on one of the country's largest asylums, the Lynchburg Colony in Virginia which held 17, 000 people at a time, most of the being poor and ill-educated thus considered to be a burden on the state. We hear the history of the institution and accounts from some of the people who stayed there.