Monday, April 25, 2022

Forgotten victims

Gotz Aly was interviewed by Spiegel about his new book The Burdened about Nazi euthanasia. He has a disabled daughter. The matter is very personal to him.

"You too were once a protagonist of the leftist movement, but you have now distanced yourself from some of its causes. You write in your book that the ideology that leads to euthanasia was inspired by the reform movement, which essentially came from the left. What brought you to that realization?"

Aly: There was no resistance to the euthanasia murders from the leftist or secular side of society. The notion of a healthy society, of capable people who are able to enjoy life, arose in the liberal, middle-class, leftist and non-religious segments of society. The euthanasia idea came from neither the radical right-wing nor the conservative corner. It was and remains part of the modern age and progressive thought. It's just that nowhere in the world was this way of thinking put into practice quite as radically as in Nazi Germany. Assisted suicide is a very accepted practice in some European societies that are closely oriented toward modernity.

"The son of the Dutch queen has been in a coma since he had a skiing accident, and he is being cared for in England because there are almost no facilities left in the Netherlands that handle such patients." Assisted suicide is the reason why.

"There is a beautiful and very radical notion in the bible: Man is made in the image of God, no matter how sick, poor or damaged he is. We should try to transpose this maxim to our secular and constitutional self-image."

Or perhaps one might try the radical notion of taking the Bible seriously by itself.

1 comment:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

When someone is too much trouble, eventually anyone is too much trouble.