Victim of Spiegelgrund Buried at Vienna Central Cemetery

On Monday, a memorial event for the Spiegelgrund victims took place with Vice Chancellor Andreas Babler (SPÖ), Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP), and relatives of a victim. At the so-called Youth Welfare Institution Spiegelgrund, hundreds of children were murdered during the Nazi era.

Commemoration of Spiegelgrund Victims After Burial at Vienna Central Cemetery

The burial represents "another step in the historical processing of one of the darkest chapters of Austrian contemporary history," stated the Interior Ministry in a release. The fates of the approximately 800 children and adolescents who were murdered between 1940 and 1945 in the "Am Steinhof" sanatorium and nursing home have remained anonymous for far too long, said Interior Minister Karner, who is responsible for war and victim graves. "What happened at Spiegelgrund is unimaginable for us and yet it happened. It is our duty to remember the atrocities and commemorate the victims," explained Babler, whose ministry initiated the research work to identify some of the buried victims.

The symbolic memorial event took place three days after the actual burial of the mortal remains, which was conducted in the smallest circle. The bodies of the mentally or physically disabled children murdered at the so-called Youth Welfare Institution "Spiegelgrund" were provided by the Nazis, among other things, for medical research. For this reason, remnants of old specimens were found during inventories at the Medical University of Vienna and the Natural History Museum. The remains could all be assigned to already known and buried victims. Victims had already been buried at the Central Cemetery in 2002 and 2012. A total of 789 children are buried there.

(APA/Red)

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