Helene Melanie Lebel

Helene and her younger sister were born in Vienna, Austria to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. Her father passed away when she was five years old in World War One. Helene enjoyed swimming and after secondary school went onto law school. She later had to give up both her studies and her job as a legal secretary after being diagnosed with schizophrenia and put in a psychiatric hospital. She was then taken to a converted prison that became known as the Bradenburg Euthanasia Centre in Germany, where she was gassed.

Helene was one of 9,772 people listed as being gassed at the Bradenburg Euthanasia Centre in 1940. Very little is known about the victims of the T4 forced euthanasia programme. The programme was deliberately carried out covertly to stop the German public from protesting. However, in 1941, as news of the T4 programme leaked out there were protests and opposition. On 3 August 1941 a Catholic Bishop, Clemens von Galen, delivered a passionate sermon in Münster Cathedral attacking the euthanasia programme, which he described as ‘plain murder.’ He spoke of a terrible future for humanity if euthanasia became acceptable for those perceived to be weak.

Under pressure from public opinion, Hitler ordered the closure of the official euthanasia programme. However the murders did not cease, continuing instead in more secretive ways; patients died through drug overdose, or were deliberately starved to death. The organs of many of the victims were removed for scientific research, and the bodies were buried in mass graves.