‘Mein Führer!’ The Victims of Forced Sterilization in Lower Silesia, 1934–44 (tylko wydanie cyfrowe)

Opis książki

‘Mein Führer!’ is a collec­tion of biographies of vic­tims of forced sterilization from the Lower Silesia re­gion. The underlying cri­terion behind the choice of the narratives included was the existence of doc­umentation in the form of letters. The last resort in the forced sterilization procedure was to appeal to the Führer. The family and friends of a ‘selected’ individual – sometimes future victims themselves – addressed letters ap­pealing for reprieve to the Reich Chancellery. These incomplete testimonies thus constitute the only surviving record of the accounts of the persecut­ed themselves.

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“The law for the prevention of offspring with hereditary diseases was enacted a year after Hitler had taken power.

Everyone whom the law deemed physically or mentally ‘defective’, or who was inconvenient from a political or social viewpoint, was sub­jected to forced sterilization. Physicians and neighbors stood guard. Anyone could denounce you. Identification, stigmatization, exclusion lead to extermination. The Third Reich very quickly took care to create a zone free of those who might threaten the healthy tissue of the nation and burden society. These are not victims who are easily acknowledged. This book reinstates their memory and their dignity. The documents show how those condemned and their families resisted the ruling. In a state in the grip of ideological madness, no one could feel safe. Not then, not now”.

Prof. Jacek Leociak
Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences,
Centre for Holocaust Research, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences