This book tells the story of German nurses who, directly or
indirectly, participated in the Nazis' "euthanasia" measures
against patients with mental and physical disabilities, measures
that claimed well over 100,000 victims from 1939 to 1945. How could
men and women who were trained to care for their patients come to
kill or assist in murder or mistreatment? This is the central
question pursued by Bronwyn McFarland-Icke as she details the lives
of nurses from the beginning of the Weimar Republic through the
years of National Socialist rule. Rather than examine what the
Party did or did not order, she looks into the hearts and minds of
people whose complicity in murder is not easily explained with
reference to ideological enthusiasm. Her book is a micro-history in
which many of the most important ethical, social, and cultural
issues at the core of Nazi genocide can be addressed from a fresh
perspective.
McFarland-Icke offers gripping descriptions of the conditions
and practices associated with psychiatric nursing during these
years by mining such sources as nursing guides, personnel records,
and postwar trial testimony. Nurses were expected to be
conscientious and friendly caretakers despite job stress, low
morale, and Nazi propaganda about patients' having "lives unworthy
of living." While some managed to cope with this situation, others
became abusive. Asylum administrators meanwhile encouraged nurses
to perform with as little disruption and personal commentary as
possible. So how did nurses react when ordered to participate in,
or tolerate, the murder of their patients? Records suggest that
some had no conflicts of conscience; others did as they were told
with regret; and a few refused. The remarkable accounts of these
nurses enable the author to re-create the drama taking place while
sharpening her argument concerning the ability and the willingness
to choose.
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