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Abstract
Nazi Germany’s “children’s euthanasia” was a unique program in the history of mankind, seeking to realize a social Darwinist vision of a society by means of the systematic murder of disabled children and youths. Perpetrators extinguished “unworthy life” during childhood and adolescence by establishing killing stations, misleadingly labeled Kinderfachabteilungen (“special children’s wards”), in existing medical or other care facilities. Part of a research project on Nazi “euthanasia” crimes and their victims, this paper uses a comparative historical perspective to trace memories of the crimes and the memorialization of their victims at the sites of two of these wards (Eichberg and Kalmenhof in Hesse, Germany). It also discusses the implications of the findings for theorizing mnemonic practices and analyzing ways in which memorials and other sites of memory deal with past trauma and atrocity.
1. Introduction [1]
Targeting infants, children, and youths, the National Socialist “children’s euthanasia” program was a unique phenomenon in the history of humankind, as the systematic murder of disabled children was the means for realizing a social Darwinist utopia. About 30 killing centers were established, termed “special children’s wards” (Kinderfachabteilungen). The term’s literal meaning is “pediatric specialty care units”; one of its functions was to mislead parents of children with a disability into believing that excellent care was made available to their children in this way. In the wards, perpetrators destroyed life they considered “unworthy” of existence. Children with disabilities, congenital illnesses, and malformations were to be reported to local public health offices, which then passed on this information to a fictitious “Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Severe Hereditary Ailments” (Reichsausschuss zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung von erb-und anlagebedingten schweren Leiden) actually located in a branch office of the Chancellery of the Führer in Berlin. There, after an administrative screening of the reports, three medical evaluators were commissioned to determine the fate of the children, with a “positive” result being the children’s admission to a “special children’s ward” either for “treatment,” i.e., authorized murder [2], or further observation. Informed of the decision, local health authorities contacted the children’s parents and told them that their children would receive expert treatment in these wards to entice the parents to consent to the children’s admission; threats or financial incentives were provided if they did not comply. The children, termed Reichsausschusskinder (Reich Committee children), were killed by physicians or nurses, and their parents notified of the “sudden unexpected” death of their child. The physicians’ participation was always both voluntary and deliberate, as they retained ultimate authority to order or decline a killing once authorized from Berlin. The total number of casualties of this bio-political procedure, termed Reichsausschussverfahren (Reich Committee procedure), was at least 5,000, though the exact cause of the victims’ death was often impossible to determine. Some children died of overdoses of barbiturates or narcotics; others of starvation, neglect, exposure to unsanitary conditions or cold temperatures, or the withholding of medical treatment [3]. Appendix 1 contains a short case study detailing the sequence of these events. On the basis of administrative and medical records of a patient who became a victim at three years old (see supplementary file A), it describes step by step how the “Reich Committee” procedure worked, from the reporting of the child’s disability on a form to the admission to a “special children’s ward,” and ultimately his death and the notification of his parents. Appendix 2 illustrates the administrative side of this procedure, describing a series of unique documents (see supplementary file B) not previously discussed in the scholarly literature.
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