A gloomy poetic story on one of the darkest parts of history in recent Europe: euthanasia on incurable patients to save money. In Austria.
The book treats the elimination of incurable physical and mentally ill patients, both children and adults, between 1939 and 1941. The killings were framed as ‘mercy killing’ and ‘euthanasia’ and served as a precursor for the Holocaust. In a structured and organized way over 70.000 patients were murdered in Austria because they did not contribute to the society. The goal was to cut cost. In 1941 Hitler ordered the program to stop, but the institutions continued anyways.
Dieter De Lathauwer travelled to Austria photographing these care centres and psychiatric institutions. He combined his in situ photographs with stills from nazi propaganda movies on euthanasia, two digital collages and some photographs of historical objects.
The book block with images is accompanied by a leaflet containing the colophon, map and documentary notes.
This project brings together several of the artists interests: the exploration of places through social and historical blind spots, how we read photographs and the photobook as object.