His research on autism was compassionate – how could Hans Asperger have collaborated with the Nazis? | imaginary

IIn 2015, I decided to write a novel about Dr. Hans Asperger, who worked at the University Children’s Hospital in Vienna during World War II. Two non-fiction books piqued my interest: Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman, and In a Different Key: The Story of Autism by John Donvan and Karen Zucker.

When you read these stories about Asperger’s, you might think they are talking about two different people. For Silberman, Asperger was a compassionate and innovative thinker, while Donvan and Zucker portray him as an ardent supporter of Hitler. For the historical novelist, different accounts of the same person are gold dust, and I began to dig deeper.

Asperger’s became famous as a result of a treatise he wrote during World War II containing a description of what we now classify as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). His works were lost for decades, but in 1980 they were rediscovered by British psychiatrist Dr Lorna Wing. Asperger was posthumously called the “Father of Neurodiversity.” When I read about the work he and his colleagues were doing at the Children’s Hospital in Vienna, it was clear that their thinking was years ahead of its time, and is still relevant today.

Questions were asked about where the line lies between disease and difference. The diagnosis was rejected because each child was viewed as truly unique. Everything depended on finding the right educational approach and providing “the best sovereign care.”

At the heart of this work were the words of Erwin Lazar, Asperger’s predecessor: “What gift does a child give us?” It all seemed very caring and sympathetic. Could it be true that Asperger was a Nazi collaborator? I headed to Austria to meet Professor Herwig Czech of the University of Vienna, who had spent years researching Austria’s involvement in the medical crimes committed by the Third Reich. When we met, he was about to publish a paper proving that Asperger had signed the papers transferring the children to the notorious Am Spiegelgrund (the children’s ward of the Am Steinhof psychiatric hospital where many of them were murdered) and that he must have known that this was effectively a death sentence.

This was in the early days of the social media buildup, and online response to the Czech newspaper was frenetic. Keyboard warriors have flooded the Internet with correct confirmations that they He would never have supported the Nazis. None of these people appear to have read Chick’s measured paper, which in effect exonerates Asperger of some of the other charges against him. The messages were so simplistic and sinister that I wanted to walk away.

What Asperger’s did is beyond defense. But why did so few want to consider the context? This was heavy history: controversial and recent. But I knew I had to keep going because I needed to tell the stories of many people who weren’t heroes. “To know all is to forgive all” – but it is possible to separate understanding and forgiveness. When I grew up in England, simplistic World War II narratives were supported by endless films. We were the good guys, we won. The justice of the victors blurs nuance. But millions across continental Europe were spectators or active collaborators. Collaboration is not an aberration. The resistors are the exceptional ones.

I’ve actually read a lot of nonfiction books that show that the “they don’t know” defense doesn’t hold up. If people knew, why didn’t they act? I began to feel that the fictional form is uniquely capable of transcending the binaries of nonfiction and excavating layers of human nature that we prefer to ignore.

I knew my novel would be told in the first person and in the present tense. I needed a narrator who was marginal but close to the events, able to see and not see. When I read that Asperger’s had a patient obsessed with collecting 1,000 matchboxes, I knew I had found this very important back door into the story. My eponymous matchbox collector is the fictional 12-year-old Adelheid Brunner, whose version of events at the children’s hospital is sometimes fatally accurate, but more often than not deeply untrustworthy – not because she has any particular condition but because she is human.

Finally, it was the stories of Asperger’s colleagues that enabled me to shed light on the complexities of those times. In particular, I wanted to celebrate Dr. Joseph Feldner. One of Asperger’s colleagues hid a young Jewish man in plain sight, calling him only “my nephew.” Asperger knew the true identity of the “nephew” but remained silent.

So, was Asperger a criminal or a meticulous chronicler of brilliant and original ideas? The answer, of course, is that it was both. We’ve told ourselves enough stories that only serve to reassure us that we’re basically good. The novel’s work now is to remind us of our shared darkness as well as our light, and to challenge us to find humility when looking at those forced to make decisions that most of us will never have to make—at least for the time being.

The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly is published by Bloomsbury.