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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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135 |
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| Bringing “Euthanasia” to the
Camps |
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Heyde’s involvement since 1936 with the camps
themselves as supervisor of “neurologic and hereditary control” of
prisoners. Early in 1941, T4 leader Bouhler agreed to let Himmler use T4
personnel and facilities to rid the camps of “excess” prisoners
— notably those “most seriously ill,” physically and mentally.
Sometimes called “prisoner euthanasia” or (by prisoners)
“Operation Invalid,” the resultant program was officially
“Operation [or Special Treatment] 14f13.”* The designation came from
the reference number for the operation in documents of the Concentration Camp
Inspectorate. † That spring, “experienced psychiatrists” from T4
were sent to the camps, assured that their work in selecting out
“asocial” elements had scientific importance. Their work, as in T4,
was based on prior questionnaires. For this purpose, however, they were
shorter, asking after a prisoner’s name, race, and “health”
(that is, whether incurable) ** The short form was explained by the T4
doctors’ lack of time, although camp commandants or camp doctors did the
initial screening. To camouflage procedures, those selected were told that they
were being sent to a “rest home.” (In fact, people apparently
volunteered until it was realized what was happening when personal effects, but
no “rested” prisoners, returned.)6
As low as T4 standards were, those in 14f13 were worse.
“Examinations” by T4 doctors were perfunctory or non-existent, and
the questionnaires frequently contained no medical information at all, but only
a list of an inmate’s ostensible crimes and political deviations. Ordinary
SS camp personnel could construe political beliefs or rude comments about the
Führer as “mental deficiency” or “psychological
aberration,” and the visiting doctors’ commission almost never
objected to an SS request for “transfer” (to a killing facility).
Whatever the travesty of medicine, inmates observed that “the doctors were
dressed in white coats,” although other prisoners apparently assumed that
they were Gestapo in disguise.7 Toward Jews
these white-coated doctors developed an approach that was to become a Nazi
trademark — that of collective diagnosis. For Jews, neither
“examination” nor health considerations were necessary. As one
participating T4 psychiatrist recalled, “it sufficed to take the reasons
for arrest (often very extensive!) from the documents and transfer them to the
questionnaires.”8 This meant that the
only thing to be considered was |
__________
* There is some evidence
— Friedrich Mennecke’s recollection in his testimony at
Nuremberg¹ — that, as early as the summer of 1940, psychiatrists from
T4 were sent to concentration camps to evaluate inmates, whose original
questionnaires were filled out by camp doctors. One commentator sees in this
early sequence an “experimental” phase in the expansion of medical
killing.² But others question whether any such phase actually
occurred.³
†Similarly, for example,
natural deaths were 14F1; 14f2 was a suicide or accidental death; 14f3, shot
while attempting to escape; 14fl, execution.
4
‡ This contradicts
Nitsche’s later testimony that “the combing out of the
c[oncentration] c[amps] was done according to precisely the same viewpoint, by
means of the same questionnaires, as those in the insane asylums.” He
claimed that, because of rumors of popular unrest over the placing of the
mentally ill in camps, they were being returned to proper
institutions.5 |
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THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of
Genocide
Robert J. Lifton
ISBN 0-465-09094
©
1986 |
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