Major Crimes and True Crime

In 1937, Robert Wagemann was born in Germany with a shattered hip. He was about five years old when his mother, Luta, received a summons to come to the university clinic in Heidelberg with her son. By law, doctors and midwives were ordered to report young children with mental or physical disabilities to public health officials as part of the Nazis' child "euthanasia" program—a secret killing operation targeting disabled children. Robert was also in danger of Nazi persecution because he was a Jehovah's Witness. “I had two strikes against me: being a son born to Witnesses and also having a defect,” he later recalled. At the clinic, Luta overheard doctors discussing murdering Robert. During the doctors' lunch break, Luta grabbed her son and fled the clinic. They then went into hiding at Robert's grandparents' home.  Robert survived in hiding until the end of the war, but about 10,000 German children with disabilities were murdered as part of this Nazi program...