Nazi's euthanasia files are made public
BMJ 2003; 327 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.327.7419.832-a (Published 09 October 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;327:832All rapid responses
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Those nazi files are certainly extremely important historical
documents to understand the "logic" of organized murder by the nazi
government. However it seems to me very problematic to call it "euthanasia
murder" since those words are incompatible. The laws on euthanasia in
democratic countries such as holland and belgium have as first and binding
principle the notion of autonomy and free will of the patient and they
respond to the meaning of good death for those who ask for it in a
situation of despair or unbearable suffering.
The nazi files are about
murder, organized murder as it were and have nothing to do with the real
meaning of euthanasia. If the nazi called it that way it was a campaign
of cynical misleading of germans to legitimize organized crimes of
"others" jews homosexuals , handicapped tziganes...communist" since for
nazi ideology there was no good other you were either the same or one
which could be "good only if it is dead "a good jew is a dead jew"..." a
good communist is a dead communist....
It is precisely this association of words that should be denounced in
order to de-diabolize the notion of euthanasia. This semantic game is
tricky. The concept of free will (pre-supposed in the notion of informed
consent) protects us from these abuses from the Nuremberg code since it
should be the only normative principle that can be inscribed in the legal
regulation of subjective perception of good death and allows to never
confuse it with murder.
Mylene baum
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If I understand Bill Albert's position correctly, he clarifies the
distinction of "Euthanasia" and "Eugenics".
If so I agree with him and while not condoning the Nazi behaviour would
like to provide some references to where the protocols implemented
originated, as he [Bill] indicates, in the USA -- Dr. Alexis Carrel, a
nobel prize winner (Rockefeller Institute) and also look at the "Nazis,
Eugenics, and the T-4 Program (1920-1950)"
http://www.disabilityhistory.org/t4prog.html
Out of the context of this article I do agree with the concept of
Euthanasia being a personal choice, not to be confused with an "eugenics"
program.
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Murder? Euthanasia? Of course, it’s not euthanasia, of course it’s
murder. But more than that, and importantly more, it was
“scientifically sanctioned” murder, the outcome of eugenic policies
adopted and adapted by the Nazis from what had been going on
especially in the United States. The more historically accurate
description would be wholesale murder through active eugenic
cleansing.
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Dear Albert Kirshen - sorry to be pedantic but it is important to me
to state that my 'lament' is precisely for 'man's inhumanity to man' and
inability to learn from atrocities - not the absence of g-d --I used G-d
as a device whilst lamenting also the absence of a spiritual dimension to
much of life.
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A film on display at the Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War
Museum in London shows a nurse in uniform helping a naked man into a gas
chamber. While only a small number of nurses were indicted for their
participation in the killing of handicapped and mentally ill people in the
Third Reich (many of whom were children), because the programmes were
conducted in hospitals, many nurses must have been involved. Those who
were charged said they were acting under doctor's orders. But the time has
come for nurses to take responsibility for this aberrant period of out
history. To this end, nurses from Ireland, US, UK, Australia, Germany and
New Zealand have formed a research collaboration to examine this issue and
a conference is planned for next year. We would be pleased to hear from
anyone who can contribute to, or is interested in this area.
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One can only thank Ms. Tuffs for bringing this to the readers'
attention. One wonders at the world in general and the UN in particular,
however, when genocidal sites like Rwanda, Bosnia, and Somalia were
allowed to exist without effective action.
When another reader laments about the apparent absence of G-d I
would, instead, lament at man's continuing inhumanity to man, the
continuing blindness we demonstrate to suffering. At what point do we
stand up and say "enough" to genocide?
Shouldn't "Never again" mean exactly that? Why doesn't it?
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i was surprised to read mass murder of "biologically unsound" people
being termed euthanasia which is actually termination of life out of mercy
or humaneness.
it is time that the proper term be used and people concerned own up to the
atrocities openly.
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During the 1980's I attended a joint meeting Of German and Israeli
jurists,psychiatrists and psychologists in Ravenburg, Germany The main
sublect of the meeting was a dialogue between German and Jewish colleagues
on the Holocast and the racist ideology of the Nazis and the influence of
the Eugenics movement. We visited Grafeneck which been an extermination
center for mentally retarded and chronically mentally ill persons. There
is a memorial stone which relates what was done there and acknowledges the
guilt of the perpetrators. Unfortunately the German word for euthanasia
was used. We pointed out that euthanasia has to do with mercy killing and
not the extermination of "biologically unsound" persons. Our hosts thanked
us for drawing their attention to this and promised that the wording would
be changed. Unfortunately I do not know if this was actually done. It is
however disturbing to see that the word "euthanasia" is still confused
with murderous extermination for ideological reasons
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My god, my god, why have you forsaken me! I would have worshipped at
your feet but you preferred to see me crawl. I was once one of those
fools with shining eyes who was born to adore, but you kicked the dung of
the world in my face. You all knowing god almighty should have known that
the most gentle of worms will turn if treated with such contempt. The
why? why? why? become a rage not a lament.
The cosmic loneliness, the deep ache of silence, the being of being
alone. How I long to be once again at home. Now images flicker, a video
running ever backwards. I see them, I see them, the faceless smiles, the
parental screams and the reek of fear. The tape is stuck,stuck, stuck. It
is as though you have never been lord and never again will be. You have
been so impotent, the devil so strong. He has no need to write a bible
when his servant are so biddable. What is one man sacrificed when so many
are dispensable.
Oh! One day we will go avenging and revenging we will wipe the smile
from the moon, repeating horror down the centuries if justice is not done.
Where is Karradijch, where is Saddam! Women left with babies tenderly
nestling in their bellies, their fathers of no name but hatred and pain.
To bear to be human is to forgive and create anew but as we gather
together after the gods of war have moved on, at first a whisper, then a
rumble and a roar, we know that somewhere else, somebody else is suffering
mans' inhumanity to man.
(I am not a 'believer' but hope it is acceptable to use the device of a so
called christian western world.)
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Euthanasia: A Caution
The term "Euthanasia" may technically differ from the Nazi killings
of "life unworthy of life" but it was under the guise of Euthanasia that
Hitler's Final Solution was able to escalate. Even those on trial for
Nazi crimes against humanity claimed to be providing relief for those with
various afflictions through mercy killings. Euthanasia is a slippery slope
toward sanctioned selective social murder.
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