IN PROGRESS

There were over 450 children killed at Brandenburg Psychiatric Institute. Many of them were killed by poisoning with Luminal. Most were sent to the gas chamber, carried in by nurses or led in to the chamber as if they were walking into a classroom. The nurse who could say she was specialized enough to work with children, was highly respected during the time of T4. T4 nurses helped with loading and unloading children onto and from the buses, and with helping the children undress, be examined, and photographed. The nurses were the leaders, who took the children by the hand or carried them to the gas chamber…all with a sense of personality and aura so as to calm the children of any fears or hints of the horrible event that was about to pass.

Willi B.
I interviewed Willi’s brother, who stated that Willi was blind and mildly retarded. On October 28th of 1940, two days after being visited by his parents, Willi was transported to Brandenburg and gassed to death. He was 16 years old. The family was told he died of blood poisoning, which they never believed to be true. Willi’s parents never got over his death and sought answers until the day they died. In 2002, Willi’s brother finally received written documentation that his brother was murdered by the Nazis as part of the T4 Program.

Irmgaard R.
Irmgaard had epilepsy, making it difficult for her to be trained to work…which was very important to the Nazis. The ability to be able to work or not was oftentimes a key factor in whether a person was killed. Irmgaard’s parents successfully got her out of an institution in 1927. However, upon the death of her mother, Irmgaard’s father returned the girl to the institution. Irmgaard was transported to Brandenburg and killed in 1940.

Gunther K.
Gunther and his two brothers, Herbert and Alfred, had a degenerative and terminal disorder. Dr. Julius Hallervorden studied the diseases of the brain at Brandenburg and he studied the three babies while they were alive. The boys were then gassed to death and their brains were preserved for Dr. Hallervorden’s further research. The bodies were cremated and disposed of. In 2003, the little boys’ brains were finally laid to rest on the grounds of Brandenburg.