Am Spiegelgrund clinic
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Am Spiegelgrund was the name of a "children's clinic" in Vienna (translated as "At the Playground"). Although called a clinic it in fact was a centre for the euthanasia of children.
[edit] Context
Hitler's "Final Solution" was the genocide of every Jew in Europe. There were also many euthanasia centres in Germany and Austria for people suffering from mental diseases or handicaps : Bergen Belsen, Birkenau, and most infamous Auschwitz. But not just adults were killed. Children were "mercifully" sent to so called Children's Hospitals. The most prominent of these was the Kinderspital (Children's Clinic) am Spiegelgrund in Vienna.
[edit] Euthanasia of children
Spiegelgrund was the home of one Heinrich Gross, or as he was known by his subordinates, The Scythe. The children's clinic held within it the same horrors that would await Jews in Auschwitz, but with a medical twist. Perfectly normal children were deemed handicapped and put to sleep, much like one would do to a dog. The halls of the Children's Clinic were silent, the bleached white walls and kindly attendants luring children into a hellish nightmare hospital. One of the first of the horrors of the Clinic was the uncertainty. Children began to disappear, to die for no reason. Attendants, including the psychiatrist Heinrich Gross, smothered children in their sleep. Upon inquiry, they would blame a fatal muscle conniption caused by the mental state of a perfectly normal patient. Children's oxygen masks would be filled with carbon dioxide, suffocating them in a painful death. Heinrich, the Scythe, would blame an unfortunate case of pneumonia. The Scythe was relentless. Poison would be slipped into food and randomly given to starving children.
The Scythe was far from finished. As if death was a punishment enough, their small bodies were mutilated in hellish "autopsies". Brains were removed and placed in formaldehyde jars. Legs, arms, fingers, any kind of extremity imaginable was removed, placed in a jar, and stored in the basement. The Scythe kept a few of the specimens for himself. Am Spiegelgrund was the place of over 800 deaths, the vast majority of them of innocent children. The Scythe was never convicted, his trial was indefinitely postponed due to insanity charges. 600 children were buried in a secret memorial service. Sadly, the only recognizable part of the children were the labels on their jars. Finally they were officially buried in 2002 and Gross had his Honorary Cross for Science and Art (awarded in 1975) stripped in 2003.
