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Franz Schubert's grave
Why is there a deer in the Central Cemetery?
Vienna Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery)
Vienna Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery)
Today, I went to the Vienna Zentralfriedhof, the biggest and most popular cemetery of Vienna. Here, you'll find all sorts of graves from all sorts of different people, including famous figures. There's a massive Jewish Cemetery here, and there's also a massive tomb dedicated to the 2nd biggest antisemite in Austria right behind Adolf Hitler.
Beethoven's grave
Mozart's fake grave (real burial unknown)
Am Spiegelgrund MEmorial
Am Spiegelgrund MEmorial
The reason I came to this massive cemetery today was not for the typical reasons tourists come here. It wasn't so I might find the graves of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, or Falco (I found those by accident). My reason was personal, and it was to find the graves dedicated to the Am Spiegeglrund victims of the Nazi regime.
In the Nazi Era, 789 disabled children lost there lives at the Spiegelgrund clinic, located at the Steinhof complex. When they were killed, these kids' brains were kept preserved in jars as specimens to be continuously studied on by the perpetrators. Even after the war, these kids' brains were still being studied on by the very people who killed them. Heinrich Gross, one of the perpetrators and head of Pavilion 15 (killing pavilion), not only got away with what he did, he even continued to profit off the studies he did on the kids' brains, boasting such things as "I have the largest collection of brain specimens in the world". Yeah, no kidding Dr. Gross, those kids were victims of Nazism that didn't want to die.
These unethical studies on the kids brains continued until April 2002, when they were finally given a proper burial, which you can see here below.
Herta Schreiber, one of the Am Spiegelgrund victims, was referred there by Hans Asperger, namesake of Asperger's Syndrome. Like everyone else here, her brain was kept as a specimen to be studied on unethically.
Elizabeth Schreiber, another one of the Am Spiegelgrund victims, was also referred there by Hans Asperger. She too met the same grisly fate as Herta.
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