The Brazilian Holocaust That Killed 60.000 People
A psychiatric hospital where people came to be tortured and die.
Professor Ivanzir Vieira could not believe what his eyes were seeing. It was March of 1970 and he was right on time for his lecture. Upon entering the lobby of the pharmacy university, dozens of dead bodies of women and men, older and younger stood on the floor. The bodies were half-naked and, by the smell, Vieira could tell they were dead for days. The scene reminded him of Dante’s hell.
Confused, he asked the anatomy technician why there were so many bodies. His answer would echo in his head for decades. A wagon from the nearby psychiatric hospital stopped by the university. They didn’t need that many bodies, but the price was too good to say no.
It would take years for professor Vieira to fully understand what happened that day.
It was the year 1970 and psychiatry was a very misunderstood topic in Brazil, and everywhere else. The hospital of Barbacena, which opened in 1903, was working at full steam.
Barbacena had a capacity for 200 patients but it accommodated around five thousand. Most of which didn’t actually have a diagnosis for mental illness.
