Introduced in 1957, Contergan, a drug containing thalidomide, promised relief from illness. Prescribed to ease nausea in pregnant women, it caused severe congenital malformations, including phocomelia. At Heidelberg’s Orthopedic Hospital, where Ernst Marquardt works, surgeries, rehabilitation sessions and prosthesis fittings mark the childhood of its young patients. In Buone vacanze Heidelberg, Rebecca Picci reflects on this period.
