Remains found in hospital graveyard in Austria, likely victims of the euthanasia program

An article written by Kate Connolly and published in the Guardian newspaper in the UK on January 4, 2011; explains that a mass grave was found by an Austrian hospital which is likely where the victims of euthanasia were buried.

The Tyrol Psychiatric Institute has recently uncovered records and a mass grave that indicates that approximately 220 people were killed by euthanasia between 1942 - 1945 at this institution in Austria.

It is significant that Oliver Seifert, an historian, told a press conference that many questions remained unanswered. He article reported:

"At this stage we can't say that all 220 people were victims of the Nazi euthanasia programme but one of the central questions we will be looking into is how they died," he said.

He added that his discovery of the documents, during a reorganisation of the hospital archives, showed the death rate of patients at Hall went up considerably towards the end of the war, despite the fact that the institution was not officially part of the Nazis' euthanasia programme, under which tens of thousands of people with disabilities were killed. The graves may throw light on the way in which euthanasia as a policy was decentralised and, even without orders from on high, became systematic in many psychiatric institutions across the Third Reich whose head doctors bought into the Nazi belief that people with mental disorders were unworthy of life.

Even though this institution was not part of the T4 euthanasia programme, that in fact doctors and possibly administrators took it upon themselves to kill people with disabilities.

People say, don't bring up the Nazi doctors, they were forced to kill people by a criminal regime.

The fact is that the doctors at this institution and many other institutions were not forced to kill people, but chose to do it because they believed that these people were "better off dead."

The article continued by quoting Seifert. It stated:

"We know that murder was actively carried out at other psychiatric institutions, by overdosing patients, neglect or undernourishment," Seifert said.

Until now there had been no official documentation supporting the idea that patients at Hall, which still operates as a psychiatric institution, had been murdered, although at least 360 patients from Hall are believed to have been taken to other institutions to be killed.

In other words, directly and intentionally killing people by neglect (abuse) or undernourishment was an accepted method to kill people within the Nazi regime. Now we do the same but we call it withdrawing medical treatment. Consider the cases of Terri Schiavo or Pastor Joshua Mayundi.

The article concluded by explaining that:

A commission has been given two years to investigate. Excavation of the graves is to start in March, by which time the area's snow should have melted.

Scientists will study each of the bodies in an attempt to ascertain their identities and causes of death.

The hospital launched a global appeal for those who believe their relatives might be among the victims to contact them. It also called for witnesses to come forward with any information that might help.

"Every memory has the potential to help us in researching the history of this cemetery," a spokesman said.

Many people will tell you that society wouldn't do these horrific crimes today. There is only one way to protect people from similar crimes and that is by maintaining a social and legal prohibition on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

I must admit that today the euthanasia lobby is more sophisticated. They use the illusion of choice to sell an imposed death on society. The fact is that choice is an illusion.

Consider the recent reports concerning euthanasia in Belgium that found that 32% of all euthanasia deaths were done without explicit request or consent and that nearly half of all euthanasia deaths were not reported.

Consider the Groningan Protocol in the Netherlands which authorizes the euthanasia death of children born with disabilities.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Choice is an illusion.