Colônia Psychiatric Hospital (Museum of Madness)

Minas Gerais · Brasilien · Hospital

Some 60,000 dead lie hidden in mass graves in the fields around the asylum — and in Barbacena their unrest is said never to have left the ground.

In the fields around the Hospital Colônia in Barbacena lie the mass graves, and locally it is said the dead never found rest there. Visitors describe how the air in the old corridors turns heavy, and the restlessness of the inmates is said to have stayed in the buildings long after the beds were carried out.

The asylum opened in 1903 and became Brazil's darkest institution: an estimated 60,000 people died here of starvation, cold, neglect and abuse before it closed in the 1980s. Many were never ill at all — they were merely inconvenient: unwed mothers, political undesirables, the poor, epileptics. One of the buildings now houses the Museu da Loucura, the museum of madness, its straitjackets and electroshock machines still in place.

FAQ

Hvor ligger Colônia Psychiatric Hospital (Museum of Madness)?

Colônia Psychiatric Hospital (Museum of Madness) ligger i Minas Gerais, Brasilien.