Manfred Bernhardt was born to a happy, working class family in Dortmund, Germany, in 1929. The photograph shows him at home with his older sister, Gerda. Manfred was born with a mental disability and at a very young age he was diagnosed with 'water on the brain', 'epilepsy' and idiocy'. His parents loved him very much and tended to spoil him.
In 1942, when he was thirteen years old, Manfred's parents reluctantly sent him to Aplerbeck asylum, a childrens' care home, hoping that he would benefit from doing farm work in the open air. They visited Manfred often, and his mother would always bring him pancakes that she made for him specially.
However, the family did not realise that Aplerbeck was part of a secret 'euthanasia' programme in which the doctors and nurses killed patients in their care. Six months after he arrived at Aplerbeck Manfred was murdered by his doctors because they believed his disability made him 'unworthy of life'. He was one of 70,000 Germans with mental and physical disabilities who were murdered by the Nazis.
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