content

The documentary "Spiegelgrund"

"Spiegelgrund" is a documentary about victims and relatives suffering from the inhuman conditions in the Viennese reformatory and the childrens medical department "Am Spiegelgrund". Their stories outline the years of 1940 to 1945, the years of the nazi-education and euthanasiaprogram, and run up to the present days:

Alois Kaufmann (Vienna) was brought to the reformatory "Am Spiegelgrund" (present name: Psychatric Hospital "Baumgartner Hoehe") as a juvenile delinquent in 1943. There, he witnessed brutal physical and psychical torture of children and youngsters up to 1945. His memories together with the lack of social and political respect towards former so-called antisocial delinquents determines his life up to now.

Hermine Kaufmann (Vienna) is Alois wife for more than 30 years. A short look in their day to day life gives an impression of the emotional burden laying on this relationship.

Wilhelm Roggenthien (Hamburg) - a so-called ward of Hamburgs "Alsterdorfer Anstalten" took his chance to free his girlfriend out of Spiegelgrund in 1943. His example gives us a hint of the possibility to resist nazi-terror effectivly even under worst conditions.
Antje Kosemunds (Hamburg) sister Irma was deported to Vienna children medical department in 1943. Following years of private investigations

Mrs. Kosemund found her sisters brain in a cellar of the "Psychiatric Hospital Baumgartner Hoehe": After being used in medical research up to the eighties, Irmas brain now is kept in a so-called memorial room together with the mortal remains of several other murdered children.
Mrs. Kosemund attempts to have her sister be buried in Hamburg were blocked by Vienna authorities: a bureaucratic hurdle-race started, lasting until 1996. A burial for the mortal remains of the other murdered children is still not in sight.

Typical for the Austrian way to deal with nazi-committors after 1945 is the career of Dr. Heinrich Gross, medical doctor at the childrens medical department "Am Spiegelgrund" in the nazi-era. In 1981 the Viennese Dr. Werner Vogt produced legal evidence at court that Dr. Gross was "involved in the killing of several hundreds of supposed mentally ill children". Nevertheless he turned out to be medical director of the "Psychatric Hospital Baumgartner Hoehe" after 1945 and the most active medical examiner at Austrian courts in the last decades.

On the other hand none of the victims surviving nazi-terror and euthanasia-program at the reformatory "Am Spiegelgrund" has been officially recognized as victim of the nazi-regime. There is no legal base for financial reparation for the victims.

The victims stories are put in context to the output of historical research by:
Elisabeth Brainin (psychoanalyst, Vienna), Peter Malina (historian, Vienna), Wolfgang Neugebauer (chairman of the documentary archives of Austrian resistance, Vienna), Werner Vogt (medical doctor, Vienna), Michael Wunder (psychologist, Hamburg).
Their statements are brief, the documentary is concentrated on the stories of the four victims.