Cell block of the prison and, from 1940, the Brandenburg an der Havel State Nursing Home. On the left is the barn where the gas chamber was installed, around 1870.

Action Reinhard Camps.

This is the rear of the side wing of the institution’s barn, where the gas chamber was located. In addition to the gas chambers, there were two crematorium ovens. The photo was taken around 1925.

Memorial Sites Brandenburg an der Havel (GBadH).

BRANDENBURG

The Brandenburg killing centre was located in a former poorhouse and later prison in the centre of the city of Brandenburg. In 1931, the prison was closed and a protective custody camp was established in 1934. It was one of the first concentration camps in the German Reich. Afterwards, the judiciary used the »old prison« as a training ground and penal institution. At the end of 1939, a gas chamber was set up in a barn on the premises. In January 1940, the first »trial gassings« were carried out. The prison was given the cover name »Landes-Pflegeanstalt Brandenburg an der Havel« (Brandenburg an der Havel State Nursing Home). By October 1940, more than 9,000 sick people had been murdered in Brandenburg as part of »Aktion T4«. About ten percent were children and adolescents, another ten percent were of Jewish origin. The sole reason for the murder of the Jewish sick was their Jewish origin. Until July 1940, the bodies were burned on the prison grounds. This could not be hidden from the surrounding neighbourhood. In the last months before the killing centre was closed, the cremations therefore took place on a piece of land near the village of Paterdamm. The Brandenburg killing centre was closed on 28 October 1940. The murders by gas continued in Bernburg. Today, there is a memorial at the site of the crimes in Brandenburg.