Sterilization Procedure Leaflet

Authors

Object ID

2015.2.146

Object Name

Leaflet

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

Front: White paper with a graphic black, white, and red illustration of the body being opened with medical instruments performing a sterilization procedure. Includes dotted lines pointing to certain parts of the body with descriptions at the end of them. Includes red and purple hand stamps, black printed text, and Tuerk's signature in black at the bottom.Back: Another graphic black, white, and red illustration of the body being opened with medical instruments performing a sterilization procedure. Includes dotted lines pointing to certain parts of the body with descriptions at the end of them. Includes printed text at the bottom.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Marianne Tuerk was a medical doctor who had been imprisoned for murdering children at Kinderspital Am Spiegelgrund, the children's clinic in Vienna, as part of the Nazi “euthanasia” program known as Action T4, headed by Philipp Bouhler. Along with neurologist Margarethe Heubsche and Ernst Illing, the medical director of Spiegelgrund, Tuerk claimed that the murders were ordered from Berlin to "purify and improve the physical standards of the German race." These children had been designated as Lebensunwertes Leben (Life Unworthy of Life) and were thus targeted for so-called euthanasia. Overdoses of Luminol, Veronal and Morphine were administered to children deemed disabled and considered "inferior" according to Nazi racial policy. Over seven hundred children perished at Spiegelgrund, one of six Nazi institutes where physically and mentally handicapped people were killed as part of the T4 program. In most cases the cause of death was cited as pneumonia or muscle problems. Brains and other body parts were collected and placed in jars of formaldehyde.

Dr. Tuerk was imprisoned for ten years after the war. Illing was hanged. This document is a sterilization procedure leaflet explaining the procedure to potential victims or family members.

Dimensions

9 3/4 x 6 1/4"

Keywords

Sterilization, Medicine, Medical, Kinderspital Am Spiegelgrund, Children, Spiegelgrund, Vienna, Action T4, Euthenasia, Berlin, Lebensunwertes Leben, Life Unworthy of Life, Luminol, Veronal, Morphine, Marianne Tuerk

Subcollection

Euthanasia, Trial

Recommended Citation

"Sterilization Procedure Leaflet" (2015). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2015.2.146.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/236