The burdened

Today, one in eight adult Germans is directly related to someone who was murdered between 1940 and 1945 because they were mentally ill or disabled. Those involved at the time glossed over the crime as redemption, mercy killing, life interruption, euthanasia or assisted suicide.
Not a few relatives felt relieved after the silent, semi-secret disappearance of their needy loved ones - the state had lifted a burden of life, a heavy worry from them.
Most families remained silent afterwards; many were ashamed to mention the names of the victims. Only today, after almost 70 years, the spell is loosening. Slowly, those forgotten ones are reappearing who had to die because they were considered crazy, annoying or embarrassing, because they were abnormal, chronically ill, dangerous to the public, unable to work or in need of care, because they burdened their families with the stigma of "hereditary disease".
Götz Aly describes how the euthanasia murders took place in the middle of German society as a publicly known secret.
He lets the victims speak, shows how relatives behaved, and how doctors adopted killing as part of their daily therapeutic routine while at the same time pursuing reformist goals.