This project made while at London College of Communication involved a research trip to the Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany to investigate the Aktion T4 murders at the Hadamar Psychiatric Hospital between 1939 and 1945. Elements of this project went on to form the larger, body of work ‘A Dark Road Without Horizon’
The horrific murder of over 10,000 disabled citizens at the facility officially ended in 1941, however, the killings continued until the end of the Second World War, with the last known victim, a four year old boy, being murdered on the 29th of May 1945. Victims were killed by either starvation, lethal injection or gas chamber.
The murders at Hadamar became the focus of the first post war mass atrocity trial. It was conducted by the American occupation forces in October 1945.
This short film combines images and ambient sound recordings taken during the research trip to Hadmar and a memorial site at Tiergartenstrasse, Berlin, the location of the main administrative offices of the Aktion T4 program. Elements of ‘Erbkrank’ (The Hereditary Defective) a National Socialist propaganda film and ‘Murder mill at Hadamar’ a British Pathe film covering mass graveside autopsies of victims.
Author Stephen Unwin kindly gave me permission to use texts from his play ‘All our Children’ to illustrate the complete dismal of human life by the National Socialists and facility staff. Narration is provided by Anna Kroeger and Christian Schulte-Loh.