The correlation between the eugenics, Nazi race theory, euthanasia and Holocaust will be discussed at a conference at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest on April 25, 2016. The conference, titled is the first result of the cooperation between the Holocaust Museum Houston and its counterpart in Budapest. The event will bring together outstanding experts of the Houston-based Center for Medicine after the Holocaust, from Austria and Hungary.

Historic background: From autumn of 1939 until the summer of 1941 some 70000 patients and people with various disabilities were killed in the “medical” institutions of Nazi Germany. Most of them were murdered in gas chambers. Later, the technology established during this process was applied by the same staff in the extermination camps in the occupied Poland, first of all in Sobibor and Treblinka.

The staff caring out Hitler’s personal order were doctors and nurses. What made them to forget their Hippocrates Oath and murder patients put into their care? How could a well-intended theory aiming at improving the human genome lead to the darkest chapter of the human history, the Holocaust? These, and similar questions will be discussed by the lecturers and the audience at the event at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, starting at 1 pm on April 25, 2016. Historians, experts on medical ethics and students of the related fields are particularly encouraged to participate to the conference. Registration at regisztracio@hdke.hu.

The conference will be followed by the opening of the exhibition . The exhibit is divided into six chapters. The first five ones introduce the history of the process Eugenics, Rise of Nazi Power, Compulsory Sterilization, “Euthanasia”, and “Final Solution”. The sixth part of the exhibition represent artists’ reflections on the Nazi medicine.

Admission is free, please register at regisztracio@hdke.hu

For more details, see the program of the conference and the list of lecturers.