Tucked away on a hill in the picturesque heart of the Swabian Alps in southern Germany is the baroque castle Grafeneck. Once a summer hunting residence of the dukes of Württemberg, the castle has been a home for people with disabilities since the late 1920s, run by the Lutheran Samaritan Foundation. More than one hundred residents live there currently; it is a lively community, a Begegnungsstätte (meeting-place), as the Samaritan Foundation calls it, which works toward the social integration of people with disabilities. Every Sunday Grafeneck hosts a café where residents and visitors can enjoy coffee and cake; annual concerts and summer parties are held; and many of Grafeneck’s residents go to work in the surrounding towns. Grafeneck’s history as a care facility, however, has not been entirely uninterrupted. During the National Socialist regime, the castle was expropriated and turned into the first of six institutions for the euthanasia program, committed to the extermination of people with supposedly hereditary illnesses in the interest of so-called racial hygiene. During the eleven months of its operation (January 18–December 13, 1940), 10,654 people were gassed and cremated there. In 1947 it was returned to the Samaritan Foundation and resumed its function as a care facility.