London, Sept.27 : A manor house in an idyllic north-east German village, which was once used as a college to train Third Reich doctors’, is up for sale.

According to The Times, these trained doctors went on to sterilise “sub-humans” - the mentally and physically handicapped, and gypsy women, and ran a terrifyingly thorough euthanasia programme.

Now, the cash-strapped elders of Alt Rehse where the manor house, which trained about 20,000 doctors is located, want to get rid of the house.

The decision is more than an item on the council agenda. It is about whether a nation chooses to remember or chooses to forget.

The two competing offers are from the German Association of Jewish Doctors and a group of nature-loving healers who reject conventional medicine.

The Jewish doctors intend to convert the house into an international centre to analyse and debate medical ethics.

The plan is to cooperate with the Bar-Ilan University in Israel and the Israeli Medical Association. Young doctors would be offered courses, on ethics and a library would include historical profiles of infamous doctors such as Josef Mengele. Theologians, lawyers and doctors would come together to discuss the legal and moral basis of advanced medical research.

But the historical irony of a Jewish organisation taking over a house that was partly devoted to their destruction does not impress all of the 333 villagers.

The house is a natural magnet for those fascinated by the Nazi period. It was Martin Bormann, Hitler’s right-hand man, who arranged for the manor to be converted into a euthanasia-college.

Bormann liked the place so much that he had a room on the second floor. Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy as Nazi party leader, was also a frequent visitor. Alt Rehse was the very essence of national socialist Germany. (With inputs from ANI)