in the context of miscegenation laws and the Geltungsjuden. After the war only a few of them returned to the region. These included Hans Frankenthal of Schmallenberg, who later wrote about his experiences, and the family of Paul Spiegel (later leader of the Central Council of Jews in Germany). In hospitals and nursing homes under direct provincial control, the number of dead in the euthanasia programmes was high. Most adult patients were killed outside the province, at the Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre. Mentally disabled children were killed at Nidermarsberg in the Sauerland, in the . In total, around 3,000 Westphalian patients were involved, of which around 1,350 have been proven to have been killed at the Hadamar Euthanasia Centre. Including later victims, the total number of Westphalian patients killed is likely to be around three thousand. However, with a few exceptions, the Bethel Foundation managed to prevent the murder of its patients through to 1945. World War II Aside from the transition to a war economy and the introduction of ration stamps, the employment of prisoners of war and forced labourers in agriculture, factories, and mines was the first major change that the war brought to the province. The largest prisoner of war camps were Stalag VI-K (326 Senne) in Stukenbrock and Stalag VI-A at Hemer, but there were several others in the province. According to some estimates, over 65,000 soldiers, mostly Soviet, died at Stukenbrock alone. There are similar estimates for Hemer, although the officially recorded number of deaths there is lower. The war touched the civilian population of Westphalia directly for the first time with the bombing of the Ruhr. Münster experienced its first bombing raid in 1940 and the city became the target of severe night-time bombing even before the beginning of widespread bombing in 1941. In total, over a thousand people died in the city as a result of aerial attacks. In Bochum, over four thousand died and only 35% of buildings there survived from 1939 to 1945 unscathed. It was very similar in other cities, not just in the Ruhr and the large cities, but also in marginal areas. The cities of Soest and Meschede, for example, were mostly destroyed, and even small rural settlements like Fredeburg suffered massive damage from allied bombardment. On the night of 16–17 May 1943, RAF Lancaster Bombers ("The Dambusters") during Operation Chastise breached the dam of the Möhne Reservoir, causing