Children…

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“‘Widmann, can the Criminal Technical
Institute manufacture large quantities of
poison?’
‘For what? To kill people?’
‘No.’
‘To kill animals?’
‘No.’
‘What for, then?’
‘To kill animals in human form: that
means the mentally ill, whom one can
no longer describe as human and for
whom no recovery is in sight.’”
DR ALBERT WIDMANN, CHIEF CHEMIST AT THE CRIMINAL
TECHNICAL INSTITUTE OF THE GERMAN POLICE,
IN A CONVERSATION WITH AN OFFICIAL
OF HITLER’S PERSONAL CHANCELLERY
On this page: Buses waiting at the Eichberg Clinic for
patients to be taken to the Hadamar “euthanasia” centre,
where they are murdered and cremated. Opposite: Smoke
rising from Hadamar’s crematorium.
The genocide begins
The systematic murder of Europe’s Jews and the genocide
of the “Gypsies” were both preceded by the statesanctioned
murder of citizens who were physically or
mentally handicapped or classified as“asocial elements”.
The operation called Aktion T4 began in October 1939
and was directed from Hitler’s personal chancellery.
Victims were taken from asylums and clinics all over
Germany and transported in
grey buses with drawn curtains
or windows painted over to
“euthanasia centres” equipped
with gas chambers and crema
toria. Doctors decided who
should be “disinfected”, that
is, put to death. Relatives were
informed of the death with a
standard letter. “Dear Herr …
As you are no doubt aware,
your daughter Fräulein …
was transferred to our institu
tion on ministerial orders. It is our sad duty to have to
inform you that she died here on … of influenza … All
attempts by the doctors to keep the patient alive were
unfortunately unsuccessful.” Body parts from “eutha
nasia” victims were often preserved and sent to medi
cal schools as study material. At least 120,000 people
were killed in this way between 1940 and 1945. The
programme was officially terminated in August 1941,
partly because widespread unease about it embarrassed
the Führer’s office. However, at conventional clinics and
institutions throughout Germany, the systematic murder
of children and adults through starvation or lethal
injection continued until the war ended.
By the end of the summer of 1941, mass shootings
of Jews in the Baltic countries and occupied regions of
the Soviet Union had become routine.The largest single
action took place on 29 and 30 September 1941, when
an SS Einsatzkommando, aided by local police, killed
33,371 Jewish men, women and children in the Babi
Yar ravine outside Kiev.
The SS, led by the “archi
tect of genocide” Heinrich
Himmler, had administrative
responsibility for the Holo
caust. In October 1943, Him
mler spoke of the “extermi
nation of the Jewish people”,
praising his organisation. He
said: “We had the moral right,
we had the duty to our people
to kill this people who wanted
to kill us.” In their own eyes,
the murderers had remained
“decent”. One post-war myth is that those refusing to
participate in mass shootings were punished by death.
However, no such cases are documented. The few who
requested not to kill were replaced and not punished.
Most had no qualms and continued killing, believing
the Jews were “vermin” who had to be exterminated
for the sake of the Führer and the Fatherland. As long as
reasonably discrete, many perpetrators could also enrich
themselves by robbing victims’ money and possessions.
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