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I therefore prefer to forego this appointment, though it is suited to my inclinations and capabilities, rather than having to betray my convictions; or that by remaining silent I would encourage an opinion about me that does not correspond with the facts. - Otto Krayer (1933)1.
A pit of dread grew inside my stomach as
I stared into the haunting eyes of a young girl in a photograph on the walls of Berlin’s Charité Hospital, imagining the brutal fate she eventually faced. Ingeborg was
a German child who suffered a traumatic brain injury and consequently developed neurological and psychiatric disabilities. She also lived under the Nazi regime, which systematically murdered those with disabilities under the auspices of the infamous T4 program: killing centers designed to eliminate “life unworthy of life.”2 As I mulled over the black-and-white photograph of this straight-lipped young girl with bangs and a flower-patterned shirt, Ingeborg came to life before my eyes like any other child I might have seen that summer day in Berlin innocently holding her mother’s hand. Directly above her loomed
a photograph of Hans Heinze, a German psychiatrist who supervised the Brandenburg “euthanasia” program to which Ingeborg was sent and murdered in a gas chamber. She then likely had her brain collected for psychiatric research.
Ingeborg and Hanz Heinze’s photographs in an exhibit in Charité.
Several months ago, when I received an email that I was to join a cohort of professionals to visit sites from Nazi history and discuss professional ethics, I felt
a morbid eagerness to experience firsthand the moral conflict of a medical professional during the Nazi era. What ethical tensions might they have felt? How would I have responded to systemic injustices at the time? As an avid student of bioethics and a newly minted fourth-year medical student,
I thought this was the perfect opportunity to explore what drives the systemic complicity often found in the checkered history of medicine. In my undergraduate philosophy classes, I learned about the Milgram experiments, mob psychology, and theories of moral relativism, and I had long contemplated whether I could have been
a Nazi under the same circumstances. Despite this theoretical preparation, I did not anticipate the ensuing assault on my moral sensibilities.
Over the course of two weeks, I walked through sites like the Brandenburg gas chamber and the Auschwitz barracks, now transformed into exhibits communicating the
I therefore prefer to forego this appointment, though it is suited to my inclinations and capabilities, rather than having to betray my convictions; or that by remaining silent I would encourage an opinion about me that does not correspond with the facts. - Otto Krayer (1933)1.
A pit of dread grew inside my stomach as
I stared into the haunting eyes of a young girl in a photograph on the walls of Berlin’s Charité Hospital, imagining the brutal fate she eventually faced. Ingeborg was
a German child who suffered a traumatic brain injury and consequently developed neurological and psychiatric disabilities. She also lived under the Nazi regime, which systematically murdered those with disabilities under the auspices of the infamous T4 program: killing centers designed to eliminate “life unworthy of life.”2 As I mulled over the black-and-white photograph of this straight-lipped young girl with bangs and a flower-patterned shirt, Ingeborg came to life before my eyes like any other child I might have seen that summer day in Berlin innocently holding her mother’s hand. Directly above her loomed
a photograph of Hans Heinze, a German psychiatrist who supervised the Brandenburg “euthanasia” program to which Ingeborg was sent and murdered in a gas chamber. She then likely had her brain collected for psychiatric research.
Ingeborg and Hanz Heinze’s photographs in an exhibit in Charité.
Several months ago, when I received an email that I was to join a cohort of professionals to visit sites from Nazi history and discuss professional ethics, I felt
a morbid eagerness to experience firsthand the moral conflict of a medical professional during the Nazi era. What ethical tensions might they have felt? How would I have responded to systemic injustices at the time? As an avid student of bioethics and a newly minted fourth-year medical student,
I thought this was the perfect opportunity to explore what drives the systemic complicity often found in the checkered history of medicine. In my undergraduate philosophy classes, I learned about the Milgram experiments, mob psychology, and theories of moral relativism, and I had long contemplated whether I could have been
a Nazi under the same circumstances. Despite this theoretical preparation, I did not anticipate the ensuing assault on my moral sensibilities.
Over the course of two weeks, I walked through sites like the Brandenburg gas chamber and the Auschwitz barracks, now transformed into exhibits communicating the