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Book cover of The First into the Dark

The First into the Dark

The Nazi Persecution of the Disabled

by Michael Robertson, Astrid Ley, Edwina Light · 2019

ISBN: 0648124231 9780648124238

Category: Medical / Ethics

Page count: 352

<p>Under the Nazi regime a secret program of ‘euthanasia’ was undertaken against the sick and disabled. Known as the Krankenmorde (the murder of the sick) 300,000 people were killed. A further 400,000 were sterilised against their will. Many complicit doctors, nurses, soldiers and bureaucrats would then perpetrate the Holocaust.</p><p>From eyewitness accounts, records and case files, The First into the Dark narrates a history of the victims, perpetrators, opponents to and witnesses of the Krankenmorde, and reveals deeper implications for contemporary society: moral values and ethical challenges in end of life decisions, reproduction and contemporary genetics, disability and human rights, and in remembrance and atonement for the past.</p>