Tracing the rise of racist and eugenic ideologies, Henry Friedlander explores in chilling detail how the Nazi program of secretly exterminating the handicapped and disabled evolved into the systematic destruction of Jews and Gypsies. He describes how the so-called euthanasia of the handicapped provided a practical model for the later mass murder, thereby initiating the Holocaust.The Nazi regime pursued the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, and the handicapped based on a belief in the biological, and thus absolute, inferiority of those groups. To document the connection between the assault on the handicapped and the Final Solution, Friedlander shows how the legal restrictions and exclusionary policies of the 1930s, including mass sterilization, led to mass murder during the war. He also makes clear that the killing centers where the handicapped were gassed and cremated served as the models for the extermination camps.Based on extensive archival research, the book also analyzes the involvement of the German bureaucracy and judiciary, the participation of physicians and scientists, and the nature of popular opposition.
Mémorial de la Shoah Reeks
Deze uitgebreide serie documenteert en bewaart de herinnering aan de Holocaust. Door middel van getuigenissen, documenten en historische analyses biedt het diepgaande inzichten in een van de donkerste hoofdstukken van de menselijke geschiedenis. De betekenis ervan ligt in de poging om herinneringen te bewaren, de oorzaken en gevolgen van genocide te begrijpen en niet in het minst als waarschuwing voor toekomstige generaties te dienen. Dit werk is cruciaal om het verleden te begrijpen en ervan te leren.
