After 1945, how were people treated who had supported the Nazi regime and were responsible for the mass murders? These objects deal with remembering and forgetting.

One of the things you see here is a scientific publication by Heinrich Gross, with which he made a name for himself in the 1960s. His research was based on the brains of children who had been put away and murdered between 1941 and 1945 at “Am Spiegelgrund”, located at Baumgartner Höhe in Vienna. The children had been deemed physically or mentally unfit, or they were simply from socially disadvantaged families. Heinrich Gross was one of the doctors responsible for their murders.

He was arrested and charged in 1948, but only two years later the verdict was changed so that he was released from prison. Gross continued his work: he returned to the psychiatric ward for children and youth “Am Spiegelgrund” at Baumgartner Höhe, and even became head of the ward.

For his research on the brains of children murdered at “Am Spiegelgrund” during the Nazi era, Gross received the Theodor Körner Award in 1959 and the Austrian Cross of Honour for Achievements in Science and the Arts, which was later revoked.
Gross was also an accredited psychiatric expert for court cases. So, in 1975, he ended up sitting across the table from Friedrich Zawrel, who had been institutionalized at “Am Spiegelgrund” as a child himself, and witnessed on his own body the crimes Heinrich Gross and others had committed there. In an interview, Zawrel speaks about encountering Heinrich Gross:

“Right then, he said to me: Have you ever been in psychiatric care? Then I lost it. I said, Mr. Primarius, for an academic you have an exceptionally bad memory.
 —What is it I should remember?
So I said, Oh my God, can you even sleep at night? Are you not haunted by the cries of the small children left to freeze outside on the pavilion at temperatures below zero? That was the devil’s symphony, that doesn’t bother you in the least? Can you still sleep at night? Have you forgotten about Krenek, Jegelius, Hübsch, Türk, Jockel… ? I listed the names of all the doctors. Have you forgotten all that? How can you live with that?
—What? You were there too?
He leaned back in his chair, and turned as pale as the ceiling.”

In the 1980s, critical voices within the medical field brought attention to the crimes Gross committed. In spite of that, the case did not reappear in court until 2000. The trial was stopped after only 30 minutes, as Heinrich Gross had been declared unfit for trial on the basis of dementia and depression. Many found this questionable, especially because shortly after the trial, Gross was interviewed at a café. He was able to recall many things in great detail. He also said, “I think it cannot be proven that I did anything.”

In 2005 Gross died at the age of 90. That a Nazi perpetrator was able to take on an influential role in post-war Austria was no exception.


With an excerpt from:
Oral History Interview mit Friedrich Zawrel – 4. Teil, Österreichische Mediathek


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