Spiegelgrund children's psychiatric clinic

Am Spiegelgrund was a children's clinic in Vienna during World War II, where 789 patients were killed under the Nazi Regime's Children's Euthanasia Program also known as Aktion T4. Between 1940 and 1945, the clinic operated as part of the psychiatric hospital Am Steinhof later known as the Otto Wagner Clinic () within the Baumgartner Medicine Center located in Penzing, the 14th district of Vienna.

Am Spiegelgrund was divided into a "reform school" and the so-called children’s ward, where sick and disabled adolescents were exploited in medical experiments and abused. Some died by lethal injection and gas poisoning; others by disease, undernourishment, exposure to the elements and "accidents" relating to their conditions. The brains of up to 800 victims were preserved in jars and housed in the hospital for decades.

Beginning in the spring of 1938, an extensive network of facilities was established for the documentation, observation, evaluation and selection of children and adolescents whose parents did not comply with the Nazi ideology. The recording of the individuals often began in infancy. Doctors and midwives across the Reich reported mental and physical abnormalities in newborns and children to health authorities. For example, in 1941 in Vienna, 72 percent of newborns were documented within their first year of life by the city's more than 100 maternity clinics. Included within the records was genetic information. Indeed, anyone who came into contact with a health institution was systematically recorded into a "hereditary database". All told, over 700,000 Viennese citizens were entered into this database. Genetic information was compounded with school assessments and with employer information and criminal records, when applicable.

Many within Vienna's healthcare system adhered to Nazi eugenics, and patients of all ages were funneled into specialized facilities, in which many patients were mistreated and killed. Among them were those deemed Life unworthy of life. Throughout Germany and Austria, euthanasia centres were established, including Hadamar Euthanasia Centre and Hartheim Euthanasia Centre, for people suffering from mental or physical handicaps. However, it was not just adults were killed in these institutions. Many children were "mercifully" sent to Children's Hospitals. Among the most prominent of these was the Kinderspital (Children's Clinic) am Spiegelgrund in Vienna.

...
Wikipedia