Ausmerzen tells the little-known story of the Nazi eugenics program known as Aktion T4, which exterminated tens of thousands of disabled and mentally ill German children and adults beginning in 1939 – that is, before the Final Solution – and ending in 1945, months after the war had ended. As told by Marco Paolini, German eugenics was not an insane conspiracy of fanatic racists, but the culmination of a trend in scientific theory that regarded itself as enlightened, progressive, and humanitarian, with important proponents in all the advanced nations, and that enjoyed significant support in governments, universities, and philanthropic foundations in Europe and America.

Marco Paolini is a master storyteller long admired in Italy for his live narrations, in theatres and television broadcasts, of willfully forgotten historical events that lurk under the surface of the Italian national psyche. His work, from the pathbreaking Vajont, 9 October 1963 (1993), the recounting of a foreseen dam disaster that traumatized the nation, has been credited with serving as a contemporary form of Greek Tragedy, a deeply ethical summoning of the national community to witness itself and its history.

With Ausmerzen, performed and broadcast in 2011 (the word is a German folk term to describe the annual culling of the herds), Paolini has expanded his vision, with his characteristic method of incisive research in original sources, to embrace the modern West, its ambitions and illusions. In a sequence of tightly focused chapters, this published adaptation of the performance moves from close attention to victims, perpetrators and spectators to sharp descriptions of cultural moments, with continuous reflection on what this story means for us today.