Stories and Narrative: August 2022

Euthanasia Program

Buses used to transport patients from the Eichberg hospital near Wiesbaden to Hadamar euthanasia center. The windows were painted to prevent people from seeing those inside. Germany, between May and September 1941.

Source: Holocaust Encyclopedia

The "euthanasia" program targeted, for systematic killing, patients with mental and physical disabilities living in institutional settings in Germany and German-annexed territories. Historians estimate that the program claimed the lives of 250,000 men, women, and children.

"Euthanasia" centers, Germany 1940-1945

In Nazi usage, "euthanasia" referred to the systematic killing of those Germans whom the Nazis deemed "unworthy of life" because of alleged genetic diseases or defects. Beginning in the fall of 1939, gassing installations were established at Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim, and Sonnenstein. Patients were selected by doctors and transferred from clinics to one of these centralized gassing installations and killed. After public outrage forced an end to centralized killings, doctors instead administered lethal injections to those selected for "euthanasia" in clinics and hospitals throughout Germany. In this way, the "euthanasia" program continued and expanded until the end of World War II.

Robert Wagemann describes fleeing from a clinic where, his mother feared, he was to be put to death by euthanasia

Robert and his family were Jehovah's Witnesses. The Nazis regarded Jehovah's Witnesses as enemies of the state for their refusal to take an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, or to serve in the German army. Robert's family continued its religious activities despite Nazi persecution. Shortly before Robert's birth, his mother was imprisoned briefly for distributing religious materials. Robert's hip was injured during delivery, leaving him with a disability. When Robert was five years, he was ordered to report for a physical in Schlierheim. His mother overheard staff comments about putting Robert "to sleep." Fearing they intended to kill him, Robert's mother grabbed him and ran from the clinic. Nazi physicians had begun systematic killing of those they deemed physically and mentally disabled in the fall of 1939.

Benno Müller-Hill, Antje Kosemund, Paul Eggert, and Elvira Manthey describe the Euthanasia Program

Benno Müller-Hill, professor of genetics at the University of Cologne and the author of Murderous Science, describes the Nazi "Euthanasia" Program, with oral history excerpts from Antje Kosemund, Paul Eggert, and Elvira Manthey. Antje Kosemund had a disabled younger sister who was admitted to Alsterdorf Institute, Hamburg, December 1933, at the age of three and was subsequently killed in 1944. Paul Eggert was a resident of the orphanage section of the Dortmund-Applerbeck institution from 1942-43 where he witnessed the euthanasia of fellow orphans. Elvira Manthey was taken with her sister from a large, impoverished family and placed in a children’s home, 1938.

[Photo credits: Getty Images, New York City; Yad Vashem, Jerusalem; Max-Planck-Institut für Psychiatrie (Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie), Historisches Archiv, Bildersammlung GDA, Munich; Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Germany; Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes, Vienna; Kriemhild Synder: Die Landesheilanstalt Uchtspringe und ihre Verstrickung in nationalsozialistische Verbrechen; HHStAW Abt. 461, Nr. 32442/12; Privat Collection L. Orth, APG Bonn.]

Helene Melanie Lebel

The elder of two daughters born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, Helene was raised as a Catholic in Vienna. Her father died in action during World War I when Helene was just 5 years old, and her mother remarried when Helene was 15. Known affectionately as Helly, Helene loved to swim and go to the opera. After finishing her secondary education she entered law school.

1933-39: At 19 Helene first showed signs of mental illness. Her condition worsened during 1934, and by 1935 she had to give up her law studies and her job as a legal secretary. After losing her trusted fox terrier, Lydi, she suffered a major breakdown. She was diagnosed as schizophrenic, and was placed in Vienna's Steinhof Psychiatric Hospital. Two years later, in March 1938, the Germans annexed Austria to Germany.

1940: Helene was confined in Steinhof and was not allowed home even though her condition had improved. Her parents were led to believe that she would soon be released. Instead, Helene's mother was informed in August that Helene had been transferred to a hospital in Niedernhart, just across the border in Bavaria. In fact, Helene was transferred to a converted prison in Brandenburg, Germany, where she was undressed, subjected to a physical examination, and then led into a shower room.

Helene was one of 9,772 persons gassed that year in the Brandenburg "euthanasia" center. She was officially listed as dying in her room of "acute schizophrenic excitement."

Hartheim castle euthanasia killing center

Hartheim castle, a euthanasia killing center where people with physical and mental disabilities were killed by gassing and lethal injection.

Hartheim castle, a euthanasia killing center where people with physical and mental disabilities were killed by gassing and lethal injection. Hartheim, Austria, date uncertain.

A victim of the Nazi Euthanasia Program

A victim of the Nazi Euthanasia Program: hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for her nonconformist beliefs and writings, she was murdered on January 26, 1944.

Germany, date uncertain.

Emmi G., a victim of the Euthanasia Program

Emmi G., a 16-year-old housemaid diagnosed as schizophrenic.

She was sterilized and sent to the Meseritz-Obrawalde euthanasia center where she was killed with an overdose of tranquilizers on December 7, 1942. Place and date uncertain.

Kaufbeuren euthanasia center. Germany, 1945.

Kaufbeuren euthanasia facility. Killings by lethal injection took place in Kaufbeuren. Germany, 1945.

Head nurse of the children's ward at Kaufbeuren

Head nurse of the children's ward at the Kaufbeuren-Irsee euthanasia facility.

Personnel of T4

Personnel of T4, the agency created to administer the Nazi Euthanasia Program.

. Pictured from left to right are: Erich Bauer (chauffeur), Dr. Rudolf Lonauer, Dr. Victor Ratka, Dr. Friedrich Mennecke, Dr. Paul Nitsche,and Dr. Gerhard Wischer. Berlin, Germany, 1939–45.

Friedrich Mennecke, a Euthanasia Program physician