| “LIFE UNWORTHY OF LIFE”: THE
GENETIC CURE |
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Psychiatric Transfer: “White Coats and SS
Boots”
Transportation arrangements were a caricature of
psychiatric transfer. The organization created for this function, the Common
Welfare Ambulance Service Ltd. (Gemeinnützige Krankentransport, or
Gehrat),* sent out “transport lists” to the hospitals from
which it was to collect patients; issued instructions that patients were to be
accompanied by their case histories and personal possessions as well as lists
of valuables held for them; and specified that those patients for whom lengthy
transport could be dangerous to their lives should not be transferred (a show
of medical propriety and an actual means of avoiding the awkward situation of a
patient dying en route).
SS personnel manned the buses, frequently
wearing white uniforms or white coats in order to appear to be doctors, nurses,
or medical attendants. There were reports of “men with white coats and SS
boots,” the combination that epitomized much of the “euthanasia”
project in general.51
To hide
patients from the public, bus windows were covered with dark paint or fixed
curtains or blinds The destination of the buses was specifically kept secret
from the medical staff of the institution from which they were loaded and of
course from the patients themselves. SS guards on the buses carried special
documents enabling them to pass unchallenged through all checkpoints. The
initial practice of taking patients directly to the killing centers was after
some time discontinued in favor of “observation institutions” or
“transit institutions” — often large state hospitals near
killing centers — where patients spent brief periods before being sent to
their deaths. These observation institutions, which were suggested by Heyde and
may have enhanced scheduling arrangements, provided an aura of medical check
against mistakes while in fact no real examination or observation was
made.52 In addition they seemed to have been
part of an impulse toward bureaucratic mystification that further impaired the
autonomous existence and the traceability of a patient and to a considerable
extent of his or her family as well.
The bureaucratic mystification was
furthered by letters sent to the family first notification of transfer because
of important war-related measures and then a second letter upon the
patient’s reaching the killing center announcing his or her safe arrival
and adding that at this time Reich defense reasons and the shortage of
personnel brought about by the war made visits or inquiries of any kind
impossible, although the family would immediately be informed of changes in a
patient’s condition or in the visiting policy. The second letter was
signed, with a false name, by either the killing doctor or the chief of the
killing center. The third letter, sent — under a false name by the
Condolence-Letter Department — just days or perhaps weeks later, was a
notification of the patient’s death53
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* A related Common Welfare
Foundation for Institutional Care handled financial arrangements.
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