• Memorial to the victims of the National Socialists enforced sterilizations and »euthanasia« killings in Berlin Buch
The Buch Mental Hospital was the central site of the National Socialists »euthanasia« campaign crimes in the Berlin region. Since November 2013 a memorial remembers the fate of its victims.
Image: Berlin-Buch, 1908, Hospital building, Landesarchiv Berlin
Berlin-Buch, 1908, Hospital building, Landesarchiv Berlin

Image: Berlin-Buch, 2013, Memorial to the victims of »euthanasia« crimes, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
Berlin-Buch, 2013, Memorial to the victims of »euthanasia« crimes, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
The killings of tens of thousands of patients and residents were the first systematic mass crimes of the National Socialist regime. The »Euthanasia« campaign was developed by a subdivision of the »Kanzlei des Führers« (Hitler's Chancellery) with approximately 100 staff. This »Zentraldienststelle T4« (Central Office T4), named after its address in Tiergartenstraße 4, initially organised the killing of people with mental illnesses or handicaps by carbon monoxide. Until the formal cessation of the murders by gas in August 1941, SS-physicians killed more than 70,000 people in six specially equipped institutions on the territory of the German Reich. Between August 1941 and 1945 the murders continued under a decentralised procedure.
Since the beginning of the 20th century the »III. Berliner Irrenanstalt« (3. Berlin Lunatic Asylum) ­– its innovative treatments were considered commendable – existed on the premises of the Buch mental hospital. With the National Socialists' rise to power the living conditions of the mentally ill or handicapped patients constantly deteriorated. As a result of the »Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring«, established in 1933, about 800 Buch patients were forcibly sterilized. During the »Action T4« the mental hospital was dissolved and the more than 2,800 patients were moved. Most of the patients were murdered in the »euthanasia« killing centres Brandenburg an der Havel and Bernburg. Until the end of war in 1945 many patients also fell victim to the so-called decentralised euthanasia by overdosing of medications, starvation and malnutrition.
The Buch mental hospital was the first collection institute for a »Sonderaktion« (special action) against Jewish psychiatric patients from Berlin and Brandenburg, who were abducted in large-scale transports to Brandenburg an der Havel and murdered there, solely because they were Jews.
Image: Berlin-Buch, 1908, Hospital building, Landesarchiv Berlin
Berlin-Buch, 1908, Hospital building, Landesarchiv Berlin

Image: Berlin-Buch, 2013, Memorial to the victims of »euthanasia« crimes, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
Berlin-Buch, 2013, Memorial to the victims of »euthanasia« crimes, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
After 1933 almost 800 patients from the Buch mental hospital were forcibly sterilized. During the »Action T4« about 2,800 patients were moved to the killing centres of Brandenburg an der Havel and Bernburg, where they were murdered by carbon monoxide. Until the end of war further patients were murdered in Buch, their exact number is not known. The estimated figure of all victims of National Socialists patient killings in Germany and in European territories occupied by the German Wehrmacht is 300,000.
Image: Berlin-Buch, 2013, Memorial and hospital building, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
Berlin-Buch, 2013, Memorial and hospital building, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert

Image: Berlin-Buch, 2013, Names on the memorial's surface, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
Berlin-Buch, 2013, Names on the memorial's surface, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
In the Federal Republic as well as in the GDR the »euthanasia« killings were kept secret for a long time and the victims of forced sterilizations were practically excluded from restitutions for decades. Only since the 1980s first memorials were erected in the former killing centres and other sites of crimes. On the premises of the former Buch mental hospital, now a private hospital centre, nothing was there to remind of the Nazi crimes for a long time; it was not until November 2013 that a memorial was erected on the premises. It sits on a lawn and resembles the form of an oversized white cushion with first names on its surface. It was designed by the Argentinian-born Berlin artist Patricia Pisani. A little further away an information panel explains the historical background. The initiative for the construction of the memorial by the borough of Pankow and the city of Berlin was started in 2009, with the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe contributing to its realization.
Image: Berlin-Buch, 2013, View of the memorial, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
Berlin-Buch, 2013, View of the memorial, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert

Image: Berlin-Buch, 2013, Information panel, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
Berlin-Buch, 2013, Information panel, Galerie Pankow, Gerhard Zwickert
Name
Denkzeichen in Berlin-Buch für die Opfer der nationalsozialistischen Zwangssterilisation und »Euthanasie«–Morde
Address
Schwanebecker Chaussee 50
13125 Berlin
Phone
+49(0)30 902 95-0
Fax
+49(0)30 902 95-2244
Web
http://www.berlin.de/ba-pankow/
E-Mail
pressestelle@ba-pankow.berlin.de
Open
The memorial is accessible at all times.