"Not Worth Living" -The National Socialist "Euthanasia" and its Victims in the Area of the Present Czech Republic 1939-1945

The Hartheim Castle - Place of Learning and Remembrance (Republic of Austria), the Saxon Memorials Foundation, the Institute for Contemporary History of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the Terezín Memorial - Museum of the Ghetto (Czech Republic) worked together to fill gaps in the field of research to Nazi “euthanasia” in the so-called Reichsgau Sudetenland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

The resulting new findings were presented to the public for the first time in autumn 2009 in a trilingual traveling exhibition (Czech, German and English), which was shown in the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria.

The focus of the exhibition is the presentation of the administrative preparation and the actual implementation of the Nazi “euthanasia” in the Reichsgau Sudetenland and in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In addition, decentralized “euthanasia”, the murder of those in need of care in sanatoriums and nursing homes through deprivation of food, neglect or medication, is discussed. “Child euthanasia” and the murder of Jewish psychiatric patients are also discussed.

The exhibition is illustrated by numerous contemporary documents and photographs. The project was realized with funds from the European Union, the National Fund of the Republic of Austria, the Free State of Saxony and the Czech Republic. The traveling exhibition, consisting of 16 panels, can be borrowed by arrangement from the Memorial Site Hartheim Castle; only the costs for transport and insurance must be borne by the borrower. A catalog has been published for the exhibition. Further information can be found here.