Customer Reviews

The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

From Euthanasia to Genocide is a very very small step. This book is the best and wisest on the subject. It illustrates exactly how easy it was for Nazis to use the American psuedo-science of "eugenics" to aclimate Germany to "life unworthy of life." How simple to use the idea of "mercy death" to rid society of "useless eaters." The members of T4 were ruthless in their quest to define and rid Nazi Germany of deformed infants, the mentally ill, the deaf, the old, the young, the indigent, the DIFFERENT. No marginalised group was safe.

Of the killing centers, Hadamar is the best known -- a hub, so to speak. Nobody really knows how many people were gassed there. The buses arrived like clockwork, on schedule... Day in; day out.

Significantly, there was little civilian protest until T4 moved on to private Christian instutions. The "euthenasia" program was halted "officially" after several churches protested the gassings of institutionalised patients. (Unofffically, the program went on until AFTER the end of the war!) The members of T4 were absorbed into the killing machine known as the Final Solution. Which, of course, was the goal all along....

I reread The Origins of Nazi Genocide periodically just to remind myself that ANYONE can be marginalised -- including me and thee.

Henry Friedlander provides a compelling and accurate portrayal of the origins of the Holocaust in the elimination of the mentally ill and physically handicapped. He starts with a description of the origins of German theories of racial superiority based upon social Darwinism which began long before the Nazis came to power. Many German physicians believed that the handicapped were a burden to society and that one of Medicine's chief functions was to be merciful and weed out the lame and feeble and remove them, painlessly, of course. With the advent of National Socialism and coming to power of Adolf Hitler, these doctors willingly joined in the sterilization and euthanistic practices of the Master Race. Gypsies and Jews were the main groups selected but all handicapped were gathered up. The author describes in detail the frustrations experienced by these teutonic genetic warriors because they could not more efficiently kill and maim and remove the untermeunschen. This book is a nightmare which can happen again. The world still witnesses the open genocide of Central Europe and parts of Africa and Asia. While Hitler's bodily presence has been gone for 55 years, his philosophical dementia remains with us. This book is an excellent reminder of science misused and politicized.

As a Deaf person and an activist for the rights of the disabled in education and medical care, I was appalled to find out that the disabled were singled out for sterilization and euthanasia long before the Jews had been. I was even more upset that prior to medical school, I had never even heard of the willing collaboration of doctors and scientists in Germany with the Nazi political machine to rid their race of defective people (it didn't seem to matter when impairment began or how, or these people were educable and able to work). Not to ever dismiss the horror of the Jewish Holocaust and the amount of lives taken, but it is imperative that we remember and we teach that the slope leading to extermination of races began with the ideas of Social Darwinism, natural selection, and survival of the fittest, which were the scientific theories/beliefs used to justify the removal of anyone with a difference. This belief system still pervades society today, when someone like Kervorkian (who only worked with dead bodies) could take it upon himself to decide whether someone's life was of any worth, on the basis of 'normalcy'.

Henry Friedlander does an excellent job of writing and researching into the lives and minds of the doctors and administrators who ran the secret programs that killed first, German children who were born with disabilities, then led to the removal from schools and homes of older children with disabilities to meet their deaths through starvation and drugs, and finally to include adults with disabilities in mass murders. It was on these people that the Nazis perfected their instruments of genocide, and yet, even at Nurenburg their suffering was dismissed as "lives unworthy of life" just because of their disabilities.

This can happen again, especially with the completion of the human genome. NO laws have been suggested to curtail the use of information gleaned from the genome to prevent discrimination of any kind against the disabled. It is of great concern that the disabled community watch opponents of the Americans with Disabilities Act try to get this civil rights act revoked as being expensive, especially since it serves those who many (including Clint Eastwood apparently) feel are not productive members of society. The slippery slope begins at this point, and with these mindsets.

It is imperative that students of medicine and students of science be made to read this book. It is only through education and remembering the children and families whose lives were destroyed that we can avoid allowing this Medical Holocaust from ever happening again. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh

I did enjoy reading Friedlander's book, and I found it very informative. It was very interesting to track the origins and path of the Nazi genocide program, from the view of the handicapped, Gypsies, and Jews. As a scientist, I feel it is very important to understand what happened so that it can be prevented again. Even chemists like myself were involved in the operation.

The problem I have with the book is the way in which it is written. First of all, Friedlander gives far too much information, which ends up detracting from the overall theme of the book. For one person, he will often provide four or five different dates, where they were born, the three or four different jobs they performed before the war even started, and it all is very tedious. Second, much related information is scattered throughout the book. He may have three different chapters discussing essentially the same topic, and he is often very redundant. He will restate minor details over and over again, thereby reducing the impact of the more important information concerning Nazi genocide. Finally, I believe the book would have had much more impact if more true stories and examples were provided. While he does present a fair amount of examples in some chapters, in others there are none. I believe the book would be more profound and emotional if these "stories" were provided. Even so, I would still recommend this book.

Could have been a great book, but omissions of inordinate Polish suffering minimize books overall impact. Mengele's favorite victims to experiment on were Polish women and children, as most Polish men had already been murdered fighting on two fronts.
The Germans were trying to also figure ways to stop Poles from populating!

Same old anti-Polish distortion and convenient to slip in. These killing centers no matter where they were in a GERMAN occupied country were GERMAN run and created GERMAN killing centers. Not! As author insesitively states as a Polish one. This same insensitive blunder, although calculated and intentional is used for the camps, as well. Thete were NO Polish camps, but NAZI-GERMAN killing camps and centers in a Poland brutally oppressed and occupied by the GERMANS!

The Slaughter of Polish Gentiles started in the mid 1930,s by Stalin, some 2 million Poles murdered before WWII started; was Stalins plan all along. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Also, Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944.

For the first 2 years of Auschwits existence, 99.99% of victims, both experimented on and murdered were Polish Catholics! The Final Solution began in May of 42, when the first Jews arrived to Auschwitz in large numbers
Auschwitz: A History

A most insightful and highly detailed work concerning man's worst scientificly guided attrocities. And most releavent to those living in this very day.

This book covers the origins of Hitler's Nightmare. It did not begin with the Jews or the Gypsies, it began with the mentally ill and the disabled. Thie book begins here and gives us not just the crimes but insights into the minds of the criminals who perpetrated it. Men who were collage educated and socially quite liberal rather than the mercenary uneducated thugs who operated the death camps.

A must read for those interested in this subject.

Friedlander presents the information in a form that will bring everything to life. A must read for all interested in the Holocaust.

A very important book that must be read with the "Nazi Doctors"

An extremely detailed account of one of the worst human rights atrocities in recent memory. Unfortunately, the book is so thorough that it detracts from the flow. Footnotes or endnotes would significantly help the problem. You will find yourself bored throughout the book because you are constantly hammered with small details. And that is why it gets 3 stars.

There is also a very unnecessary, albeit subtle, pro-choice message in the "Note On Language" section in the beginning of the book (Note: I did *not* deduct a star because of this). Quote:

"Whatever one's position on either abortion or assisted suicide, comparisons with Nazi killing operations do not illuminate today's discussion. It seems to me, however, that one general lesson can be applied. Government programs launched by the Nazi regime to exclude and kill clearly show that there are private spheres of human life where no state interest is sufficiently compelling to justify intervention. Only the individual directly affected, and possibly his or her closest relatives, should make such intimate decisions. True, individuals might err, but even mistakes by millions of private citizens about their bodies or their lives are far less open to abuse than are judgments legislated by the state imposed by its agents."

While reading a book detailing the destruction of, among others, the disabled, I find it really unfortunate that Friedlander felt a need to insert such statements. He implies that government sanctioned killing of the disabled (or others) is wrong, but a private killing on a similar scale is "ok" because it's confidential and everyday people make mistakes.

Despite these problems, the book is an excellent reference guide. A sad, scary chapter in human history. You should at least take the time to skim this book, if nothing else.