Die nationalsozialistischen „Euthanasie“ Morde

In the organizer's words:

The National Socialist "euthanasia" murders
Hidden victims also in Siegen Special exhibition at the Active Museum South Westphalia
Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin - this was the location of the secret central office of the National Socialists, where the systematic mass killing of mentally ill, disabled and "racially" and socially undesirable people was planned and organized under the euphemistic heading of "euthanasia". The special exhibition at the Active Museum South Westphalia shows how the National Socialist perpetrators tested their systematic, factory-based killing technology for the first time. Today we know that there is a direct link between the "euthanasia" crimes and the Holocaust, the extermination of the Jews of Europe. More than 70,000 patients from sanatoriums and nursing homes fell victim to the first secret mass extermination campaign ("Aktion T4" - derived from the address) of the National Socialists between 1940 and 1941. After protests from the population, especially from church circles, the campaign was officially ended in the summer of 1941, but continued in a decentralized and hidden manner afterwards. According to current research, around 300,000 patients were killed by gas, medication, food deprivation or injections by the end of the war.

A "place against forgetting" From a crime scene to a place of remembrance

Ten biographical sketches of victims of the patient murders link the thematic chapters and illustrate the individual dimension of these crimes. In addition, the development of the commemoration of the "euthanasia" murders in Europe is traced.

The exhibition of the memorial and information site Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin can be seen from Sunday, October 27 (opening, 4 p.m.) until Sunday, February 15, 2025 in the Aktives Museum Siegen (Obergraben 10); always on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 3-6 p.m. and for groups by appointment. The exhibition, shown in cooperation with the AWO district association Siegen-Wittgenstein/Olpe, is supplemented by biographies of the regional victims and perpetrators involved in Siegen-Wittgenstein. Numerous people from the Siegerland region fell victim to the criminal program with the help of local officials. Stumbling stones and the digital Active Memorial Book of the AMS commemorate their touching fates.

• Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (ed.), exhibition catalog: Tiergartenstrasse 4. memorial and information site for the victims of the National Socialist "euthanasia" murders, Berlin 2015, 1st edition.
• Website of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: www.stiftung-denkmal.de