Nazi "Euthenasia"

The mentally handicapped, who were systematically murdered by the Nazis during the war as they were considered to be a burden to society, and not regarded as being worthy of life, are amoung the most frequently "forgotten" victims of national socialism.
Mentally handicapped Jews were especially vulnerable as they had no chance of emigrating.
Such an example in Hamburg was the treatment of handicapped patients in the Alsterdorf Institution. From 1937 onward, Pastor Lensch, the head of the institution, attempted not to admit any more Jewish patients, and to quickly transfer the more than 20 Jewish patients already living in the institution to other mental institutions. He later justified this policy by alleging that the charitable status of the institution was threatened. This was a pretext as the Hamburg authorities wanted to accommodate mentally handicapped patients in Alsterdorf at this time.
On 31st October 1938, 16 Jewish mentally handicapped patients were deported to the state-run Langenhorn institution, and further patients soon followed them there, or were transferred to other state-run institutions such as that in Farmsen.
On 23rd September 1940, the first 150 Jewish patients were deported to Langenhorn nursing home and murdered there. This was referred to as "euthenasia". Amoung those murdered were patients who had been expelled from the Alsterdorf Institution.
A total of over 3,000 handicapped people from Hamburg were murdered in this way during the war.

The Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf has since confronted itself with its history during the Nazi period, and has erected a memorial to the deported victims, of whom many were non-Jews, in the institution's entrance at No. 3 Dorothea-Kasten-Straße, 22297 Alsterdorf.

Struan Robertson