Hans Gross Crime Museum: Documented everyday life in the shadow of Nazi euthanasia

Everyday life documented in the shadow of Nazi euthanasia

Two diaries of a doctor's family in Graz

The lecture is dedicated to the aspect of private life in the context of National Socialist crimes, specifically using the example of a doctor's family who lived on the grounds of a hospital involved in Nazi euthanasia.

Dr Ernst Arlt, head physician at the former "Landes-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt für Geisteskranke am Feldhof", wrote a secret diary about the events at the institution, which was only handed over to the Styrian Provincial Archives 30 years after his death. At the same time, his wife, Herta Arlt née Klabinus, wrote a recently recovered diary in which she reports on her everyday family life at the "Feldhof". The lecture centres on the question of how everyday family life, childhood and domestic normality could be reconciled with the proximity to systematic murder - or not. It is not only about the biography of the doctor, who was a very ambivalent personality in relation to Nazi euthanasia, but also about the interaction between his professional role, ideological involvement and private lifestyle. What routines determined life in the institution? How much did his wife and children know about what was going on? And how was this proximity to the crime processed - or suppressed - in later stories?

Susanna Arlt, who studied theatre, film and media studies and is an editor and freelance writer, will focus in her lecture on ambivalence, complicity and the (im)possibility of a "normal" family life in the midst of state-organised violence. The aim of this contribution to the micro-history of National Socialism is to reflect on the complex interweaving of everyday life and crime and at the same time to encourage a critical examination of family memory culture.

Time: Tuesday, 13 January 2026, 18:00 hrs

Place: GEWI meeting room, Universitätsplatz 3/EG