in detail
A section of the Anhalt state psychiatric hospital in Bernburg (erected in 1875) was one of the six psychiatric institutions in which from 1940 to 1943/5 more than 70,000 mentally ill and physically disabled people and many thousands of concentration camp prisoners were murdered in gas chambers. In October 1940, an extermination facility consisting of a gas chamber, a dissection room, a room for corpses and a crematorium with two ovens was installed in the basement. When a transport with patients - or later, concentration camp prisoners - would arrive, the people were brought to the main floor where they were registered, undressed, photographed and brought before a doctor who determined a bogus cause of death. The people were accompanied by nursing staff to the gas chamber in the basement. Sixty to seventy-five people at a time were suffocated to death by carbon monoxide. According to the internal statistics of the National Socialist regime, 9,385 mentally ill and handicapped people died at the Bernburg "euthanasia" facility between November 21, 1940 and August 24, 1941. As of August 1941, prisoners from concentration camps were murdered under the so-called "Special Treatment 14 f 13" (Sonderbehandlung 14 f 13) at "euthanasia" facilities. In Bernburg alone, 5,000 prisoners - practically all of whom were Jewish - from the concentration camps Buchenwald, Flossenbürg, Gross-Rosen, Neuengamme, Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen were murdered. Some of the staff of the Bernburg "euthanasia" facility had at this time already been transferred to the extermination camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. After the killing was suspended, the essential structure of the extermination facility remained.
Shortly after the war, the victims of "euthanasia" were commemorated in Bernburg, but then the memory of these events fell into oblivion until the beginning of the eighties when the staff of the psychiatric hospital created a small exhibition. This undertaking provided the basis for the work which began in 1988 to create a memorial museum with a permanent exhibition and educational activities, which opened in September 1989. In 1993, the state of Saxony Anhalt took over the management of the memorial.In addition to tours of the "euthanasia" facility in Bernburg, special programs are provided to visitors on topics such as the history of experimentation on humans and the value of human life. Programs last anywhere from two hours to several day-long seminars.
November 21, 1940
The killing of mentally ill and handicapped people ("euthanasia") in a gas chamber in the Bernburg psychiatric hospital begins.
August 24, 1941
The killing of mentally ill and handicapped people is supplanted by the killing of concentration camp prisoners (Sonderbehandlung 14 f 13).
August 1943
Suspension of killing in Bernburg; the nursing home is returned to its former management.
From the 50s
The building is used as a psychiatric hospital.
1986
A small exhibit is created by the staff of the hospital.
September 1989
Opening of a memorial museum for the victims of "euthanasia" and "Special Treatment 14 f 13" (Sonderbehandlung 14 f 13).
1993
The state of Saxony Anhalt takes over the management of the memorial.
