The Memorial premises on Nicolaiplatz has an eventful history.
In 1790, the city of Brandenburg built a poorhouse on an open space in front of the city gates for impoverished citizens as well as invalid soldiers and their families.
The premises was enlarged, fenced in and used as a prison beginning in 1820. Until the preliminary completion of the new prison in Brandenburg-Görden in 1931, the complex served as a detention center.
1933-1939 concentration camps and penitentiary
In 1933, the Brandenburg police established one of the first concentration camps in the German Reich, which existed until late January 1934. After that time, the justice system used the “Old Prison” as a training facility and penitentiary.
In 1939, a T4 killing facility was established on the empty premises for the Nazi euthanasia program. More than 9,000 sick and disabled people fell victim to this first planned phase of the Nazi murder of the ill in 1940 in Brandenburg an der Havel in the context of the “T4” operation. The victims came from psychiatric hospitals in northern and central Germany, including Berlin. Between January 1940 and August 1941, approximately 70,000 people were murdered in a total of six T4 killing centers in the German Reich.
The Brandenburg Memorials Foundation opened the Memorial to the Victims of the Euthanasia Killings on the site in 2012.
