Lebensunwertes Leben: Roots and Memory of Aktion T4

What the Nazis called Aktion T4 was a euthanasia program, officially started on August 18th, 1939. The registration operations for individuals with physical or mental handicaps were followed by forced sterilization and transfer to clinics organized to kill. In this article, I try to explain the mechanisms that allowed the memory of Aktion T4 to be preserved and passed from one generation to the next; memories of the “merciful death” of approximately 70,000 “lives unworthy of life,” that find themselves embedded in family records and family history. In the first section, I summarize the discussion that resulted from the theories of Charles Darwin and Francis Galton. Even if those theories do not in any way allude to the consequences that we have witnessed decades after their publication, they started a debate about the value of life and the legitimacy of human intervention in the selection of hereditary character traits, as well as the concept of race and the different methods and forms of theories and eugenics that were later adopted in Europe and in the United States. In the case of Germany, translated into Rassenhygiene, those concepts flowed into the Nazi project of purification of the German people. Through interviews with families who had a relative interned in one of the program's clinics spread across the Reich territory between 1939 and 1945, I investigate the evolution and passage of memories stored within the family sphere, paying attention to the generational steps and processes of trauma. These stories are born from a complicated process of reconstructing these memories via interviews. Their recollections were full of painful silences and negations, similar to the thought process which led the victims to live in a condition that they could not understand, and separated them from the world before they were each made to face a solitary death, far from any contact with their families. The trauma that I analyze concerns actions that had been carried out by previous generations; in the majority of cases, younger generations were not aware of the destiny of their murdered relatives and therefore tried to rebuild the stories of people who they never had the opportunity to meet. I examine the problematic relationship of those being interviewed with the end-of-life issue and also the sense of guilt which is generated by the awareness of crimes that were committed. Aktion T4 was not a crime committed outside the national borders, nor a crime that extended beyond the private sphere to the “others.” Instead, it existed within the most central and intimate place of Nazi culture: the family.

ASSISTIVE CLOTHING DESIGNS FOR MENTALLY RETARDED

Clothing has always been a kind of status symbol and expression of the individual personality. People wear clothing for functional as well as for social reasons. People of all ages and in all circumstances of life are aware of the importance of appearance in perception of self and in their relations with other people. However, for those whose surrounding environment is limited by age, condition of health, or physical and mental handicaps, dressing properly is a very difficult and impossible task. Therefore there is an urgent need to design clothing according to their special requirements. The aim of this study was to design and develop functional clothing for mentally retarded respondents. A questionnaire was developed for personal interview to assess clothing practices & problems of the disabled. The identified clothing requirements were incorporated in garment designs and finally constructed. After wear trial the designed and constructed garments were found to be highly acceptable.

Cystathionine Beta-Synthase Deficiency or Classical Homocystinuria

Inherited homocystinurias have in common accumulation of homocysteine and encompass two distinctive entities: classical homocystinuria due to cystathionine β‎-synthase (CBS) deficiency and the rare inborn errors of cobalamin and folate metabolism. The natural history of CBS deficiency, the subject of this chapter, is well described compared to the other forms of homocystinurias. Untreated patients may be asymptomatic or have one or more of the following symptoms: severe mental handicaps, psychiatric disturbances, ectopia lentis, osteoporosis, Marfanoid habitus, or thromboembolic complications. Current treatment options are based on therapy with vitamin B6, folate, B12, or betaine and institution of a protein- or methionine-restricted diet.

Toward Noninvasive Adaptation of Metaphores in Content

Web information systems (WIS) can be considered as media. These media implement a tool language that enables access to content. Accessing that content aids users in achieving their goals. The language in which that content is given nowadays is often natural language or very close to it. Consequently the content involves metaphors. As the Web is open to virtually everyone, the users of WIS are likely to differ from each other with respect to ethnicity, language, gender, age, culture, education, preferences, physical or mental handicaps, and so forth. Consequently users are likely to respond differently to the metaphors occurring in the content. This chapter, therefore, proposes an approach to adapting the employed metaphors to user types for improving the value that the WIS offers to its users. This is expected to result in both increased useracceptance and number of business transactions. Therefore, an increased return on investment for the WIS is expected as well. We propose a conceptual model for user type and context-aware mapping of concepts in a target domain to concepts in a source domain. The respective mapping is used for modeling metaphors. We formalize that mapping in terms of the Higher-Order Entity-Relationship Modeling (HERM) language and in the Web Ontology Language (OWL). The conceptual model we provide can be used as a basis for hot generation of content representation such that the metaphors occurring in the content are adapted to the types of the users interacting with the WIS. As a step toward implementation, we formulate a high-level architecture that enables us to noninvasively adapt the metaphors in the WIS content to the types of the users. We report our experiences regarding exploration of the feasibility of the architecture. These experiences result from implementing a prototype that shows how metaphors—in a noninvasive manner, that is, without changing its code or content—can be added to the contents of an already-existing WIS. The chapter is completed by presenting the results of formal user evaluation which demonstrate the user acceptance of the respective metaphors.