Current military members and all veterans are admitted FREE for the day to the Museum galleries. Complimentary admission is for Museum only; ticket purchase is required for Beyond All Boundaries and Final Mission: USS Tang Submarine Experience for $6 each.

NOTE: Free admission is for servicemembers only and does not include family or friends. If you have any ticketing questions, please visit the Guest Services desk.

Programming

For more information, call 504-528-1944 x 484.

Edith Sheffer, PhD, presents Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Austria

5:00 p.m. Reception | 6:00 p.m. Presentation | 7:00 p.m. Book Signing

In 1930s and 1940s Vienna, child psychiatrist Hans Asperger sought to define autism as a diagnostic category, aiming to treat those children, usually boys, he deemed capable of participating fully in society. Depicted as a compassionate and devoted researcher, Asperger was in fact deeply influenced by Nazi psychiatry. Although he did offer individualized care to children he deemed promising, he also prescribed harsh institutionalization and even transfer to Spiegelgrund, one of the Reich’s deadliest killing centers, for children with greater disabilities, who, he held, could not integrate into the community.

With sensitivity and passion, Edith Sheffer’s scrupulous research reveals the heartbreaking voices and experiences of many of these children, while also illuminating a Nazi regime obsessed with sorting the population into categories, cataloging people by race, heredity, politics, religion, sexuality, criminality, and biological defects—labels that became the basis of either rehabilitation or persecution and extermination.

Join us and hear from Dr. Sheffer on this groundbreaking exploration of the chilling history behind this increasingly common diagnosis.

Edith Sheffer is a historian and Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of the prize-winning Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain.

The National WWII Museum embarks on a unique seven-day, six-night tour of France, visiting sites from Alex Kershaw's New York Times bestsellers—Avenue of Spies and The Bedford Boys—with the author himself serving as featured historian. Guests get an up-close experience at the beaches of Normandy and in the streets of Paris, hearing the stories of espionage, sacrifice, heroism, and tragedy along the way.

For more information on this and other tour offerings, visit our Educational Travel Page.

Cost:

Save $1,000 per couple when booking by February 28, 2018

Double Occupancy—$5,495 Per Person
Single Occupancy—$7,294 Per Person. 

Plus $109 p/p taxes and fees.
Pricing and itinerary subject to change.

Questions? Call our travel experts at 877-813-3329 x 257.

By clicking “Complete My Order” you will pay a $1,000 deposit per person and are officially registering for this tour, however you are NOT paid in full. A representative from our Travel Team will contact you by mail with tour details, a statement of your account (including your online deposit) and payment schedule for this tour. The balance of your registration fees is due no later than February 28, 2018. Our tours fill fast, so please pay in full by this date to ensure your spot.