OPPOSING THE WILL OF GOD
By: Eric Metaxas
BreakPoint
A few weeks ago, Germany dedicated a memorial to Nazism’s first victims: the disabled. The people of Germany have come to terms with their past.
The question now is, When will we?
The 80-foot glass panel unveiled in Berlin’s Tiergarten memorializes the estimated 70,000 sick and disabled people killed by the Third Reich as part of what was officially called Aktion T4 (and more informally, “Gnadentod,” which is German for “mercy death.”)
There was nothing merciful about it. Between 1939 and 1941, more than 5,000 children deemed “defective” were killed.
The program was expanded to include adults whose disabilities rendered them, in arguably the most demonic phrase ever uttered by man, lebensunwertes Leben, “life unworthy of life.” “Worth” was most often described in economic terms: a propaganda poster told ordinary Germans that caring for someone with “hereditary defects” cost 60,000 Reichsmarks, which came from ordinary Germans’ pockets.
No comments:
Post a Comment