Austria Investigates Hospital's Nazi-Era Graves

Some may be disabled victims of Hitler's regime
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 4, 2011 4:40 PM CST
Austria Investigates Hospital's Nazi-Era Graves
The general view of the blocks at the Auschwitz camp on December 8, 2004.   (Getty Images)

Mass exhumations at an Austrian psychiatric hospital are expected to shed light on a lesser-known aspect of the Nazi's murderous agenda: the killing of thousands of disabled people who, regardless of race, didn't fit the Third Reich's vision of an ideal society. The "euthanasia" programs are thought to have quietly murdered patients in mental hospitals across Axis territory.

Austrian officials will exhume 220 bodies buried in a hospital cemetery in the Austrian town of Hall between 1942 and 1945 to look for evidence they were murdered, the BBC reports. The exhumations won't begin until March, putting a a planned construction project on hold. "This dark chapter of history must now be carefully brought to light," says the local governor. Click here for more.
(More Austria stories.)

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