failures in communicating to the social media. new orleans exporting the city's literary side this weekend on c-span2 book tv. for complete schedule does it look to be.org. up first this weekend recounts how austrian doctor hans asperger whose work led to a better understanding of autism was complicit in the deaths of children. >> good evening. that is really loud. makes me sound kind of cool. glad to see some of you here and exceptionally pleased to see new faces that i have not seen before, so please come back. very pleased it to be with you tonight and welcome to louisiana

memorial pavilion and i would also like to welcome our live stream an audience that will be on c-span because we are that cool. [laughter] on the executive director of the institute for the study for democracy. we are sort of the research for the academic department. we are a lot of things. not the only source of education but one of the new sources of education programming here at this museum. we like to refer to ourselves as community scholars and we have a number of our friendly scholars from the area tonight. we also do other things. we are the research service department and if you have interest talked myself, jeremy, keith, jason, and we are research for higher. we also offer public programs, not just it-- this but also symposiums, for conferences.

we offer several days worth of conference each year the international conference on world war ii and we hope you join us. we will talk more about that after this wonderful program but tonight's guests. first went to recognize if we have any world war ii veterans with the traditional discrete museum. we recognize them, nonetheless. any veterans of our armed forces of our air berlin conflict? please rise in the recognized. [applause]. also, specifically in reference to tonight i hope those who work in the field of studying and understanding autism as medical professionals and others might also take a moment to be recognized. anyone here? [applause]. >> thank you very much.

a particular person i need to single out is my dear friend and our dear friend of the museum one of our presidential counselors. recommending doctor edith sheffer for tonight's presentation and as always we thank you for your wonderful suggestions. is melanie also hear? we welcome his wife melanie who is a wonderful friend and important part of this museum as well. as to tonight's speaker, edith sheffer is a prize-winning historian on modern european history book is seen on the jury-- german children in central europe. i have a bachelors from louisiana state university, not summa cum laude. she went on to get a doctor at the university of california berkeley. she was on the faculty at stanford and now back at the berkeley as a senior fellow institute senior studies. her previous book how easton west germans made the iron

curtain is a wonderful book, but we are here about her latest book, "asperger's children" which she will discuss with us. this is getting exciting national attention in very high praise for its excellence all around. she has broken ground on the life of doctor hans asperger and his name has a lid on and perhaps been better known in his life and work. we are here tonight to put is a difficult, challenging story. she tells it in a compassionate and sensitive manner i think recent review in the "new york times" of brooks-- i'm sorry. new york book of times review says edith sheffer has written a book that device easy categorization and appropriate for perhaps inadvertent response to her fascinating and terrible subject matter. on that note, please come to these stairs which are nondangerous. edith sheffer on "asperger's

children". [applause]. >> thank you. i made it. thank you so much for the kind introduction in the imitation to speak your today. can everyone hear me all right? it is certainly an honor. i will present an overview of my children-- brooke "asperger's children" which focuses on the creation of-- i'm getting some reverberation. which focuses on the creation of the autism diagnosis and nazis the younger and i would like to be sensitive to this subject. i know many people in this room probably know at least one person, a friend, a relative,

loved one who has been diagnosed with autism or asperger's disorder in the material i'm presenting is quite disturbing, but i think it's important that this information be known. so, one in 59 children are now diagnosed on the autism spectrum in the united states, up from one in 5000 in 1975. this is an exponential rise. what is going on? the reasons for this rise are much debated, genetic, environmental, but one of the many factors is the hans asperger idea of an autism spectrum to cold in the 1990s. decades-- leo canyons idea of autism. he looked at children who are relatively similar to one another. of a kind of more severe cognitive impairment and more limited speech. asked whether a much broader

idea of autism. he included children with milder challenges who we might today call asperger's and he is credited today with the idea we have of autism spectrum. asked berger developed his diagnosis during the third right and he had a heroic reputation as a resistor of nazi -ism and he cultivated this reputation of having risked his life in order to protect children from the nazi killing program that murdered youth considered to be disabled and in this view asperger supposedly emphasized special ability and children with autism stressing their value to the state, supposedly she was using autism diagnosis as a psychiatric schindler's list. i set out to tell this story is a heroic tale of asperger in the third reich, but with i went to

the archives in train turn to the very first date and impact very first pilot that was enough to show to me that asperger was actually complicit in the racial policies of the third reich, so i thought this was not a heroic story, but actually a horror story and i thought about abandoning the project right then and there. the files i was looking at was too terrible and i didn't want to tell this story, but i do think it has far-reaching implications for how we talk today about autism and asperger disorder. let's start at the beginning. asperger was born in 1906 in the heart of the habsburg empire, 50 miles outside vienna. he excelled at school with special talents in linkages, literature and history. he was most strong to science, however, and he left at age 19 for medical studies in 1925 at

the university of vienna. vienna was a great turmoil at the time. it had been the cultural capital of europe at the turn of the 20th century, the first place of modernism and glittering salons. then, after defeat of world war i the metropolis suffered severe political and economic crisis. street children flooded vienna constitution and the child development professionals question to help. vienna found it one of the most progressive social where fire systems the world. it was renowned. it had an army of highly trained social workers and, of course, eminent psycho analysts and psychiatrists who would donate their to obese children. when leader in the efforts was clemens. you have probably never heard of him, but he was one of the most

prominent people in vienna and headed the university of vienna children's hospital and turned it into an internationally renowned pediatric facility. he was progressive. he was open to examine tatian and to the advancement of women and jews. the one idealistic jewish pediatrician, aaron lazar came to him about the founding a kind of clinic. he was game, so he wanted to create a new discipline, which i translate to protest education and the idea was to integrate medicine, pedagogy and sex psychology to treat the whole child. this was a progressive i get the time and asperger would inherit -- inherit this clinic. they committed double suicide in 1929. they were found in bed lying in

a close embrace after 25 years of marriage. this was a real shock. k was replaced by the far right wing figure. humber and join the nazi party early on when it was essentially still a terrorist organization in austria and it was manned. he had a conspicuous sunbeam surrounded by a strong adoring children and nurses. humber was known for anti- scientific attitude and he wanted to undo. eight achievement. you wanted his doctors to focus on primary care and eugenics over metal-- medical specialization and research. he also purged jewish and liberal faculty and he hired faculty that would be on the far right, but one of his first tires was the 25-year old hans asperger.

asperger redbird hamburg or from their meeting in 1931, saying he was eager to help rectify the errors of pure case leadership and here's a folk-- photograph of hospital staff with asperger on the lower right. so, home berger placed asperger in the education clinic and promoted him quickly within two years asperger was named head of the clinic at aged 28 over the heads of longtime staffers, people who had worked in the clinic for decades despite asperger's youth and inexperience, but asperger had solid right-wing credentials and held memberships in several antiliberal, anti- socialist, anti- modern and anti- somatic organizations. 1934, just 10 days after austria declared itself a fascist single party state asperger joined that

single party, the fatherland front. so, bear with me. this slide bears fruit. this is from a digital history project i did with one of my graduate students and it maps the creation of child psychology and psychiatry in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. we basically assembled a database of leaders in the field and attract their intellectual and social background. we looked at who interned in who worked with home, who joined the state organization, who married who and what we found with intellectually psychiatry and psychoanalysis could not be disaggregated at this time, that people trained and rubbed shoulders at each other's institutions. nobel laureate julius towards the bottom in the big letters was important node in the system

and many were rotated through his clinic, the psychiatric neurological clinic including lazar, but many who tended to be liberal and a jewish opted to go into the trendier filled of psychoanalysis and you can see those figures on the lower side of the screen. pc on and sigmund freud hanging out. clements from pure kenyan lazar had been tied to those networks there in the middle, but you see humber and asked berger-- asperger very isolated in the top with the far wing ice list. this shows the ideological split in psychiatry predated the nazi annexation of vienna. vienna's institution and psychiatric community were already divided and asperger and his crew were already far off from the mainstream.

let's go inside asperger education clinic where there's a different more progressive spent. nurse and educational director generated many of their therapies and publish articles on the importance of compassion and play -based techniques-- technique. we would recognize many of her techniques today. following her the clinic staff paid attention to you two seem to have difficulty socializing and the staff collectively called these children autistic. this is as early as 1934 they were using the word autistic, but they didn't consider autistic negative pathology. it was a character trait, so the word-- the physician frankel published articles about autistic characteristics in the mid- 1930s. frankel and pfizer built jewish and immigrated to the united

states. for those of you that might know the history of leo o'connor comedy in it-- immigrated with his help. he created autism diagnosis and this is speculation in my book. we don't know this, but it needs more research. i think they may have brought the idea of autism to canter across the atlantic because cantor greatly admired frankel's work and in his first case study autism was based on pringles notes-- on frankel's notes. in nazi germany in 1930s, not the child psychologists were also diagnosing social awkwardness in youth, but were much much harsher about it children in the third reich were to possess strong community bonds work they were supposed to be enthusiastic participants in collective activities such as the hitler youth and this was the idea of fascism at the heart of nazi -ism and that's what i

hope to achieve with my book, showing the side of the fashion, collectible longing. .-dot paul schroeder of the upper left, crystal beater a nazi child psychology called this readiness to serve the community. it is one of germany's famously untranslatable words and the romantic period, i will stick to have nazi child psychologists used it, which was a deep sense of metaphysical connectedness to their greater organism and it had a national racial meaning. germans had a lot of them. the french didn't. they had reason, socialists and communists didn't have them. hit where-- hitler had a lot, signifying deepness in metaphysical connection. another man asperger followed was schroeder student to him who also wrote.

he became one of the top three leaders in this nazi euthanasia program. i went in-- i won't go into detail, but as a sampling of different diagnoses nazi child psychologists were devising, here you see three by four or streams of percentages quantifying children's ability to socialize, their heritability is supposedly their parents or cable to socialize and so the point here is that the idea of autism pervaded nazi child psychiatry long before asperger named it. asperger was a very young man at this time and he was deeply influenced by these diagnoses social maladjustments, so when his time came he would simplify the benefit steps. on the morning of march 12, 1938, the german roll across the border into austria and met

jubilant crowds. asperger in vienna with this. there was vicious violence against jews regarded by many as the worst. people assaulted jews in the streets, plundered homes, their doors and the synagogues. at the university of vienna asked berger's asperger asperger's colleagues were purged to work the medical school removed it 78% of its faculty, 70% of the asperger's colleagues including three nobel prize winners. hansberger's clinic survive dunst gave. asperger and his colleagues even thrive during the third right. the expulsion of so many liberals and jews created a vacuum to expanding opportunity.

for asperger one opportunity was naming his own diagnosis. in 1937, before that nazi annexation asperger warned against creating childhood diagnoses and asserted that there are as many approaches as there are different personalities. it's impossible to establish a rigid set of criteria for diagnosis. then, just months after the annexation asperger introduces his own diagnosis. this characterized group of children who we name autistic psychopath because the confinement of the south has led to a narrowing of their relations to the environment. most striking, asked berger asperger asperger is calling autism-- he was moving from the nonjudgmental tradition of the curative education clinic, which talked about autistic children

as a character trait and now he's moving into the realm of nazi psychiatry. also, right after the annexation asperger begins to work for the nazi government right away in april, 1938. he is consulting for the juvenile justice system in the city's remedial schools. he quickly joined several nazi organizations, the german mate-- labor front, national socialist people's welfare organization, which was not remarkable for some an ambitious and he also applied to consult for the hitler use-- youth peer asperger did not join the nazi party and this is one reason why people have seen him as a resistor and one reason why he called himself a resistor, but not joining the party was not unusual for someone in his position. only three in 10 doctors in vienna joined the nazi party and besides home berger was a

prominent nazi and already vouching for asperger. he kept asper on for the head of the education clinic when he believed doctors had to be downright saturated with national socialists. hamsberger also trusted asperger and the leadership of one of his signature programs. they would dry to rural areas in this health cart and dispense medical advice to people in need, which is sounds great. at the same time they were acting as the eyes and ears of the regime. they were registering children who are disabled and who came from families where they might be alcoholism or hereditary illness, assembling records later put to use for the children's deportation and extermination. in the fall of 1940, asperger began to work as a consultant for the and is what health office, the center of racial

hygiene member-- measures in the city coordinating sterilization, deportation, concentration camps and killing the people considered to be disabled. to give you background of the child euthanasia program, this was the first program of massive extermination greeted in holocaust. it was the gun by hitler in 1939 to get rid of children regarded as a drain on the state and a danger to its gene pool, but i can't emphasize enough how euthanasia was a mixed number. the vast majority of children were physically healthy, not to terminally help-- ill and not physically suffering. they were simply deemed to have physical, mental or behavioral defects. at least 5000 children perished in around 37 special words in the third reich inside germany.

in vienna there was one of the most deadliest where over 800 children perished in many ordinary people knew what was happening. newspapers try to denied the killings, but there were public protest on the streets in the fall of 1940. dispersed by the police, so asperger certainly knew what was going on as he admitted later in life. there's no question asperger knew what was happening. in contrast to our mechanized images of the holocaust the child euthanasia program was very different. it was supposed to become a permanent part of the third reich's healthcare system, so the killing of other groups was happening in a haphazard fashion are meant to be secret. this was a permanent part of healthcare. this was supposed to be legal and this was intimate killing typically by the very doctors and nurses, especially women who

cared for their wards daily needs and killings were done in the us own bed as staff issued overdoses of barbiturates until the children grew ill and died, usually of pneumonia. asperger was at the eye of the storm of the euthanasia program, close to its top leaders in vienna. fonds hamberger was that his mentor and collaborator for 13 years and authorize dozens of transfers of children. hamberger also conducted numerous legal experiments at the children's hospital while asperger effectively worked down the hall. asperger's postdoctoral students were depriving babies of fat and infecting babies and children with tuberculosis, all kinds of medical experience-- experiments were happening. in 1941, asperger and hamberger cofounded the vienna society for

curative education. asperger was the second vice president. he was known for accelerating the deportation of jews to concentration camps and he was the director. he was on the administrative side. another cofounder of asperger's society who is a fellow post doctorate student of hamberger of asperger under hamberger and he was also the head of the adult euthanasia facility with thousands of adults were killed. he was infamous. everyone in vienna knew he was. he was whether call the mass murder. of the bbc reported on his activity and the royal british air force even dropped leaflets calling him the lord of the syringe.

he was engaged to hitler's sister, paula. can see the resemblance. hitler greatly disapproved of the match. we don't know why, perhaps, he didn't want his sister marrying a mass murder. that's what people speculate. he had him apprehended during a trip to berlin in december, 1940, and dispatched to the eastern front which is effective way to get rid of an undesirable brother-in-law. not only did asperger associate with the top leaders, he advocated the transfer of the most disabled children to their. this is a talk he gave in vienna and published in the munich medical weekly, saying all difficult cases only a long and continuous observation like those carried out of my own clinic or the reformatory.

asperger followed his own advice he transferred children in numerous capacities while working for the public health office and working for remedial schools and chest for one example, he served as a medical expert on a seven member commission for the city that evaluated children's transfer from one care facility to other destinations and in one day they evaluated 192 files and dispatched 35 children as quote incapable of educational engagement. in one day they decided these children were in educable. this was a death sentence and all 35 children were killed. so, it's unknown and will probably remain unknown new to the fragmented record base as to how many children asperger

transferred, that we know there are two children he transferred to work with from his clinic who died there. to an half year old was the youngest of nine children. she was severely disabled by meningitis and diphtheria. asperger concluded quote her accommodation is absolutely necessary. her mother reportedly told the doctor because sometimes parents brought their children to these places in order to be killed. parents had themselves death wishes for their children. her mother said quoted the child could not be helped, perhaps, it would be better if she could die as she would have nothing in this world anyway. she died two months after asperger's transfer. asperger also recommended the transfer of a 5-year old elizabeth schreiber. one there's there wrote in a daily report elizabeth could only speak a single word, mama

and that she had a friendly nature, very affectionate and flattering with caregivers. if she is treated strictly she will cry and have the nurse. elizabeth was killed four months after she was admitted and her brain harvested kept in a collection of over 400 children's brains in the seller. one thing i really want to show in my book is that asperger's definition of autism was happening at the same time. he was developing his definition of autism and these child killings were happening. in 1937 he wrote it was impossible to establish a diagnosis for children, no such thing, we can't do it your children are two unique, but then months after the annexation he comes out with what he calls a well-characterized group of children much as psychopaths

within their relation to the environment. while in 1940 he changed his definition somewhat calling the group of abnormal children who we refer to as autistic psychopaths these loner children fall out of every community, live their own lives without emotional relationship with the environment and therefore also react abnormally to the needs of the environment. here asperger's languages more contorted of, more critical. these are abnormal children behaving abnormally and he's more concerned with social connectedness. these children are loners and have a defect of emotion. then, in 1944, asperger writes his thesis for promotion and he ratchets his rhetoric up another notch. in it he writes the autistic is only himself and not an active member of the greater organism, which he is influenced by which he influences constantly.

now, this is fascist language. we have children's membership in a greater organism. this is the fascism of the greater organism. he also adopts nazi psychiatry's and called autism eight disharmony and sites all those guys i showed you a nazi child psychology. this language is quite harsh increasingly stressing the cruelty and sadistic traits of autistic psychopaths of autistic acts of malice. year-by-year asperger is changing his definition to become more concerned with children's aptitude for community. asperger did price what he saw as the quote special ability of some autistic children in math and other technical subjects.

he said they were on the favorable end of an autism range , but this was a highly gendered view. he declared what the autistic personality is next variant of male intelligence of the male character and so he's echoing stereotypes of the time, saying boys have a gift for logical ability, abstraction, precise thinking and formulating whereas girls are more gifted for the concrete and practical. autism he said the male pattern is exaggerated to the extreme. whereas asperger believe that many of the boys could be remediated to their unique male intelligence, he gave these boys intensive health and therapy, he was far more dismissive of girls who showed the same traits. the girls were not to be remediated or educated, but he recommended them for treatment, hormone treatment or sterilization or worse.

let's start with the boys. in one of his two most prominent case studies of autistic asperger said fritz a lot of the community. it was impossible to get him to play in a group. his eye gaze was odd and mostly went into his. his second major case study asperger said hart wrote never would join a game with others and his lost gaze was often faraway. perger said both boys should be treated with genuine care and kindness and true understanding and affection. this is the image of asperger we have today. he treats these boys with love and kindness and values their special abilities and he gave them specialized tutoring on the board and play therapy. well, in the archives this is an unpublished case while i found from christina burka and he describes her as a similar terms of the boys. she was quote difficult to influence from the outside.

she was closed, inhibited, hard to reach and she never cared for the other children. so, indistinguishable, we can't know what christina really looked like, but he was seen her in the same way. asperger's clinic concluded that she sadly had-- asperger's official diagnosis of her was not a psychiatric diagnosis, but a moral diagnosis. she had a character variant and you can see his handwriting turkey was born left-handed, but had to learn to write with his right hand, so lucky me that his handwriting at the bottom. because she posed a significant criminal threat asperger ordered her transferred to a correctional institution. he was egocentric, for al gore, oppositional and underhanded. another unpublished case files,

others that were space-- faith than christina. asperger said she did not participate at all in the community of children. her facial expression was remarkable empty and she would stare impassively before her with quote a lack of contact. elf rita was supposed to be oblivious quote to the effect of her entire behavior on others, so we can't know what these girls actually looked like, but they were described in similar terms are asperger transferred both girls. clinic notes states staff introduced margarita suggesting she may have been preselected and indeed she was transfer the same day. asperger's clinic specified that l freda should be sent to the killing department at the time. l freda had a sense of

foreboding before her transfer and wrote to her mother quote i do not know if we will see each other again because i can't know if i want to die on this trip. thankfully, there is no of the girls of death despite them being handed over directly to the doctors, but the fact remains that asperger was issuing diverse dates to children with similar traits. so, asperger's eugenicist view of gender, some language about the highly original genius on children's-- children at the most favorable end of his autistic range and he did say they might excel in science or other technical professions, but this benevolent rhetoric was in keeping with the nazi psychiatry many nazi psychiatry's said nice things about children they thought could be of value.

we only see the extermination side of nazi psychiatry, but the value to children, but children who were deemed unworthy of life were made with a harsh distinction and asperger was no exception. he said it ranged down to the most mentally retarded individual. they would grow up, he said, to quote from the streets as grotesque and dilapidated. these children could not want not be helped thus the 1944, as he seeks promotion under hamberger asperger's definition of autistic psychology was deeply shaped by nazi institutions and ideology. after the war asperger claimed he had resisted nazi -ism and defended children from the euthanasia killing's. he also distanced himself from his nazi era work, he hardly

ever wrote about autistic psychopathy again. just a handful of articles, which makes me wonder to the extent of which he ever believed in it or if he was just up for a promotion. rather, he turned to religious speak and social commentary on child. asperger probably would have been a footnote in the history of autism research had it not been for this woman, lorna wing, a leading british psychiatrist who publicized asperger's diagnosis almost 40 years later in 1981. we switched fields to child psychopathy-- psychiatry with her daughter was diagnosed with autism and she herself had conducted research, more expensive than asperger ever had about youth who she felt did not fit into kanter's definition. which she published her work, however, she called it asperger syndrome as a professional courtesy, which she was describing was more her own diagnosis than asperger's work

she wanted to present a neutral condition, so she named it a syndrome, not a psychopathy and she dropped asperger's fascist rhetoric and got rid of his saying that the children were sadistic" test writing what we would consider a neutral diagnosis. as borne out wings idea of a broader autism spectrum gained traction in 80s and 90s the american psychiatric association added asperger disorder to the american manual of mental disorders. they did not research asperger nazi era activities. usually would you award a diagnosis you are supposed to research the person you are naming a diagnosis after and they did not. so, that's why we are in the situation we are in today. this rainbow is a simplistic image of the autism spectrum

that took in the public mind and you can see it's basically an iq chart. on the far left is kanter's idea of classic autism filtered with greater impairments with asperger the disorder on the far right, so asperger disorder was increasingly indistinguishable from high functioning autism. i hate the term high functioning and low functioning, but these are in common use and asperger disorder was reclassified in 2013 as autism spectrum disorder , so it no longer exists as a medical diagnosis. although, it does internationally and in this country no longer does. socially, asperger remains in wide uses as an identity for millions of people, a term we apply to love ones and personality stereotype in popular culture. most of us never think about the man behind the name.

so, the question that this work brings up is does the man matter? medical ethics it does because in medicine naming a disorder after someone is meant to to credit that individual for describing a condition and to honor them for their work. in my opinion asperger marriage neither. first, he did not discover autism. 's portrayal of autistic psychopaths is at odds with understanding today. we don't see children in terms of sadism and depravity. besides his fascist idea of ganute was not even his own. he was following in his footsteps of his senior colleagues. second, i don't think asperger merits the honor of an afternoon he sent dozens of children to their death as a conscious and willing participant in a program of systematic killing, so i have proposed we discontinue this asperger in op-ed to the "new

york times" in this idea has gotten picked up the book was just reviewed in nature by a leaking autism researcher. some of you may know him simon: and he's also calling for us to no longer save asperger on this. their other conditions that have been named after nazi era doctors that have been renamed as a result of finding out their link to extermination of the program and in medicine in general it's moving away from a time missed diagnoses to more descriptive labels. the problem is we just don't have inadequate vocabulary to talk about autism. children diagnosed with the condition you probably know many can bear very little related-- resemblance to one another so researchers suggest autism is kind of a catch all termite now that likely encompasses many different physiological conditions and hopefully one day we will be able to split into different subtypes or different

diagnoses. right now autism is expensive umbrella label and the analogy that comes to mind for me is similar to the diagnosis of female hysteria in the 19th-- turn of the 20th century, which was basically a label for women who cannot control their emotions, but they might be suffering from different conditions. epilepsy, syphilis, depression, anxiety. science just was not yet had a point to disaggregate the separate conditions. i think that is where we are with autism right now. we just don't have the vocabulary, but i think it's an interesting question, what do we do in the absence of science and to what extent are these diagnoses shaped by cultural influence? hysteria happened at a time when women were asserting physical roles in public life and the image of the hysterical woman captured the public mind and now

think the idea of an autism spectrum draws on anxiety about our children sitting into a fast-paced world, fast changing fast-paced world. on the one and you could autism might face a lifetime of disability in isolation on the other hand might be perceived to have superior abilities with coding abilities in silicon valley where i live. asperger was severe diagnosis of overly emotional women and if you think about it autism is a diagnosis of supposedly under emotional berries, ratio of diagnosis is five to make one voice to girls in the main image is white, urban, middle-class affliction. this is not to deny the real challenges of children diagnosed with these conditions. that's not my purpose here today my only purpose is to show how diagnoses can be fluid things and they emerge from the

interactions of patients, doctors, social courses, media representation and in the continual feedback loop their meanings change over time. i hope that with my book by pointing out this changeability and went to stress the ethics of treating every child's mind with care because we know so little and showing and warning how easily a society can issue labels, medication and intervention in may this research give us pause in considering how we describe and portray others in the hope that i can form discussion from where we go from here with autism. thank you. [applause]. >> thank you very much, edith. we have the microphone here in the back, center aisle.

>> thank you for the presentation. very informative. i would like to-- i'm curious. after all of your research, how do you feel these doctors rationalized it their behavior? was up for the greater good or just following orders? why did they do what they did? >> you would start off with the question. a brief anecdote, took my daughter to see and frank that-- the diary of anne frank and we had a backstage talk with the cast afterwards and people were asking questions about lighting and costumes and my daughter raised her hand, why did they do it. why did the nazis do it? i think they thought it was a scientific project and thought it was the advancement of

science and eugenics was extremely popular respected science across the world at the time. in the united states, eugenicists leaders were on the forefront of sterilization laws. nazi germany was often admired as leading the forefront in sterilization and the child is in asia program was an extension, illogical extension of sterilization to kill children between zero and three years of age at the beginning. they very carefully observed and recorded on track to these children and sent the report to berlin and got the reports back. to kill a child was not easy it was not like other programs of nazi extermination. it was incredibly scientific and deliberate. they believe in it. >> next row back. >> in isaacson's biography of

albert einstein, he noted einstein did not talk until he was four years old. his aunt referred to him as her stupid nephew. 3-year old albert einstein, but if a 3-year old albert einstein is brought into asperger's group , speculate on how he would have been diagnosed. >> i mean, i see where you are going with this and a 3-year old who was not talking or developing and hitting the prescribed milestones would be in trouble at the time and it was up to the doctor to report children with disabilities and asperger claimed after the war that he did not report children who he could have reported and there's no way to prove it that he might have withheld the names of some children. he may well have rescued children. i'm not here to deny that and so if he-- may be an individual

like him would have, but under lot the or under protocol einstein would have had to have been reported. >> .-dot next row back. >> you mentioned and give out reasons for getting rid of asperger's. do you have a suggestion for what the diagnosis should be called? >> any-- i mean, in medical terms it's autism spectrum disorder and that's all we have. often people say high functioning and low functioning. i hate that. i don't think that describes to a child necessarily is or what characteristics are you looking at me say that? my solution for the moment is to say, on the spectrum. if people have about who that child is you could describe that child or describe the person has to they are.

that's personally how i would see it, but i also don't mean to be too dogmatic same we need to get rid of the label because people do self identify or identify their children with it and for years often people have lived with this for most of their lives and how can you tell someone how to identify; right? what i'm saying is the medical community going forward should be careful with the label, but retroactively i don't. aspi is a different identity, also. i do think-- you know, i'm not going to pretend to be an expert i think-- it was the consensus of the asperger was already a problematic diagnosis and that's why it was reclassified in 2013, anyway. the world health organization has been poised to do the same.

>> i have a question online here >> okay. high tech. >> despite the high praise online-- i'm sorry in reviews, he has been held to high regard and in the history as you have explain. have you received any blowback from supporters of his or any family members he may have had or is there any resentment for your findings? >> surprisingly, no. i was really braced for this, i mean, i have had some negative comments on twitter and facebook , but i think by people who have not read the book work once you see the facts it's undeniable. i have not heard directly from people who are personally affronted by this. i think people take it as serious history rather than an attack of any sort. >> question in the center, here. >> mentioned the protest that occurred at the time.

wasn't that driven by parents, maybe, who didn't want their children killed or just general human instinct of care and concern can make sure. the protests-- the slide i showed with the pavilions, the whole complex held both the children and adults. thousands of adults were being killed there and it deported off on trains to gas chambers and so that is really what the public knew about. the killing of children was sort of whispered about and vaguely known, but what was causing the most outrage was the deportation of adults and the killing of adults, so that's what was known in those are the rumors that were circulating and it's incredible, i mean, the nazi press was denying the rumors saying no such thing as gas chambers.

but, i should say to me for those of you who know the history of the euthanasia program is the onlyrogram of mass murder that the german population protested. it's the only-- and they were able to do it quite openly with leaflets, sermons, protests and hitler technically shut down the program as a result of this popular protest. now, i don't want to give you the wrong idea. continued in secret, but at least there was some effect and if you do the thought experiment, well, what might have happened if people are protested other forms of extermination and why was it only the killing of other germans that was seen as a injectable enough to put yourself out there on the line? >> in the back towards the center. >> i remember in the 50s and 60s when it first-- the

concept of autism first came to the united states. the belief was it was because it was a cold mother and so the poor mother, not only did she have to deal with an autistic child that they usually did not take to school, but then everyone was a shining her because-- it didn't say like a cold father, it was a cold mother. >> refrigerator mother. >> that she had made this child distance. >> ironically, this is one of the reasons asperger is praised today because he held autism was genetic and that it was not the parents fault, not the mother's fault which is sounds great, but if you look at his context not see doctors are concerned with hereditary illness, proving everything is hereditary. every characteristic is inheritable and so-- it's just

interesting that today how it's done to suggest inheritable autism is seen as more progressive than blaming it on the mother. >> in the affronted to your rights. >> i was curious about the drawings and the slides. were they done by the child that was featured? >> it is a poignant drawing. i don't know how well you can see it because i shrunk it down, but when she was first brought to asperger's clinic, that was margarita and she was brought to take a bath and she had a long talk with an earth about her experiences and the nurse in her notes is said margarita just went on and on and i could not wait her to shut up and then she drew that picture and you could see it was a really cheerful house. she had warm i does a loving home, but then she put herself

as that solitary figure in the corner with the showerhead on in the bath, so like seeing herself already in asperger's clinic as the victim. >> next question. i will ask the gentleman to stand up, please. to your right, edith. >> given how readily you uncovered these disturbing facts of asperger, why do you think it has taken so long for his reputation to go unpainted? >> that's another good question. i think-- it took a while for nazi crimes to get uncovered in austria anyway and a handful of austrian scholars do know-- have known about asperger's involvement. it's just by comparison with other perpetrators he was a very minor figure. he did not-- he was just transferring children to be killed, so on a scale of

perpetrators asperger was small fry and i think in the us we have different standards for the four factor. also, in austria autism is not-- is not well known diagnosis, so he wasn't of interest due to that connection either. so, the story behind howard asperger disorder was accepted as a diagnosis in 1994, the team that was behind that wrote the archivists, i think i've different archives saying what you know about asperger, can you please tell us because we don't want to name this disorder after someone that might have been implicated even despite his reputation, and a number of the archives wrote back saying we don't know anything. we can help you and i think one scholar wrote back and said we don't know enough to say no, but we know enough to say hold on and conduct more research, but

at that time in the world health organization they had already put asperger syndrome into the icd 10, the international classification of diseases, so it was already in existence and there was a lot of pressure to get asperger disorder into the american manual and maybe there's more to the story then i know about that. ..

you mentioned all the various ideologies of which genetics is a part, a little uncomfortable with genetics alone being responsible for a logarithmic entrance was what else might play a role in this? >> i have to speak to this because i'm not in the science of artisan. the expansion of the diagnostic criteria is one factor everyone recognizes. what we think of is autism has

widened. beyond that i can't speculate. there are all kinds of theories. environmental. >> to your right. >> you mentioned experiments being done on children. you find something in the archive, specifically jewish children target or gypsies? >> jewish children and gypsies were not kept in any designated fashion, they were deported elsewhere. the children i am dealing with our considered areas, two of the four children who perished were jewish or half jewish so i can't speak to the work on gypsy twins or anything like that. it was not a factor. i should say just on the

question of what happened to the bodies a, that over half the children who perished, their brains were kept in jars in the seller as well as other body parts, not all remains were. >> he who controls the microphone controls the last question. i already know the answer to this but i'm fascinated by your work. can you let the crowd know what your next project is? >> it is a happier project and it is of interest to your museum. i am writing about switzerland in world war ii. switzerland played a terribly important role that has yet to be recognized not only on the economic front with trade and holocaust schools but in terms of spy stories with the oss and

not the networks. my understanding is the stalingrad battle plans went through switzerland and other battle plans and i hope to uncover a lot of the secret stuff that was happening, what you could call europe's post office. i don't know if that is my title are not. >> we hope to have you back for that. thank you. [applause] >> this weekend on c-span today at 10 am eastern justice and homeland security officials testify on defending against foreign interference in us elections. sunday at 10:30 a.m. highlights from the us north korea summit between donald trump and north korean leader julz:. on book tv moraitis tonight at 9 eastern, newt gingrich talks about his book trump's america, the truth about our nation's great come back. 7:00 pm mtv's decode host

francesca ramsey shares her experience becoming a social justice activist in her book that escalated quickly and on american history tv on c-span 3 tonight, lectures in history, duke prof. laura edwards on public land and the law examining westward expansion and the world of taking over american lands. at 4:00 eastern on real america, 1944 film the memphis belle, a story of a flying fortress which documents one of the first b-17 bombers to complete 25 missions in europe without being shot down. watch the c-span networks this weekend. >> so much of it is about how women persevere differently

than blue blue. we sort of hang on to each other and get it out together. how do we turn that into a strategic advantage? how do we make that more of our badass nurse instead of our burden? >> i feel i hadn't thought about it, i hadn't thought about that on a mental level, i have certainly experienced in the last year and a half women having each other after back in a way that is cool and remarkable. people used to say active leaf grabber. and -- >> evidently it is but when pres. obama had to go back into your rack, let me explain to

you, so and so says i'm crazy in the hallway, when the camera, casey hunt jackson with them at the stand up and you know, nicole could have said really? wow, barack obama took care of the rack, he should talked about it a lot. you are in the same situation as i'm in and let me reach out and help you. that is what i love about women and what i find now, every single woman, can you help me, what can you do, we are so excited but you see lanny davis who ran for senate, i am doing this can you help me? yes, you should be connected with this person or that person. or started, run for something, millennials to run for office

and what can you do to help men? women are all in it in a way and there is no -- this is mine and don't touch it, what can we do to support each other and to fight back? it is remarkable, you have a sense the workplace can be competitive because it has always been dominated by men, and women are more collaborative, and today the world is so globally collected in collaboration and cooperation is more and more important. i feel it is different, it is happening with women. >> it says people are on board too and you don't exclude them from part of your story of success, elevated more women

than any news organization in the country and -- >> probably true. >> they are more afraid of us. we are women. so do you feel -- i want to end and what we can hang onto. >> i did feel i have had in my own life amazing mailboxes and male mentors and male friends particularly in the clinton white house. i was younger and the guys who worked hard world or than me and helped me a lot but in this, i thought we had he quality, i thought we were good. i am disappointed to see we have more work to do but it is so inspiring to see it can be not just what we had hoped women could achieve but actually something more interesting because we are doing it in a different way and that means politics is going to

be different and it is not anything i had seen or expected so it might take a little longer but it is going to ultimately be for men and women both more fulfilling. >> you can watch this and other programs online@booktv.org. >> hello, welcome to kramer's. i'm one of the events coordinators here. i'm very excited about this new book mark:. we will be in conversation with julz:. both men have done many great things and i will read them off to you. this is too much. julz: is from new york city which many of you already know. he has a doctorate from oxford,