The psychiatric patients killed under the disguise of euthanasia during World War II belong to the group of victims which are often forgotten in public remembrance. For German and Austrian psychiatry it is important to include them into the memory of the discipline as well as into European remembrance of the victims of Nazi annihilation policy. The patient files of the victims enable us to reconstruct the criterion of economic usefulness for deciding about life or death. But above all the files are the basis on which the suffering and the life histories of the patients can be told.     «

The psychiatric patients killed under the disguise of euthanasia during World War II belong to the group of victims which are often forgotten in public remembrance. For German and Austrian psychiatry it is important to include them into the memory of the discipline as well as into European remembrance of the victims of Nazi annihilation policy. The patient files of the victims enable us to reconstruct the criterion of economic usefulness for deciding about life or death. But above all the files...     »