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Life Unworthy of Life: Life Unworthy of Life tells the disturbing story of the Hadamar Institution, a Nazi ‘euthanasia’ killing centre in Germany. By 1941 more than 10,000 men, women and children were murdered at Hadamar as a direct result of Nazi racial policies. The primary victims of the Nazi ‘euthanasia’ and forced sterilization program were German children and adults who were blind, deaf, physically disabled or mentally handicapped, epileptics, orphans, juvenile delinquents and nonconformist youth. Children with cerebral palsy, other neurological conditions or Down Syndrome were targeted and used as subjects in scientific experiments. This crime against humanity was committed against the most defenseless of victims in German medical and welfare institutions. These crimes committed under the T4 program were a direct precursor to the atrocities of the Holocaust. The gas chambers and crematoriums used in the death camps were first developed and tested as tools of mass murder. T4 medical personnel later staffed the extermination camps of Poland. This exhibit, produced by the VHEC, raises ethical questions concerning many contemporary practices and areas of research that are both sensitive and contentious, such as genetic screening for birth defects, sterilization, infanticide and wrongful births.
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