Brazil's Hospital Colônia: A 'Holocaust' of Neglect Where 60,000 Died

The Hospital Colônia in Barbacena, Brazil, stands as a dark monument to systemic neglect and mistreatment, where an estimated 60,000 people perished between its opening in 1903 and its closure in 1980. Known grimly as "the city of the crazy," the institution received thousands of individuals from across Brazil, often transported in conditions eerily similar to those used to deport Jews to Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

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“Another ‘train of the crazy’ is coming!”

Upon arrival at the Bias Forte station, patients were immediately stripped of their possessions and identities. Men had their heads shaved, and all underwent a public, cold collective bath for supposed disinfection. This dehumanizing process stripped them of individuality, a precursor to the neglect that awaited them. The hospital, built on land once known as "Hacienda de la Calavera" (Hacienda of the Skull), was intended as a mental institution, but records indicate that the majority of its inmates were not mentally ill.

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“The outcasts of society arrived in Barbacena from different corners of Brazil. They traveled crammed in freight cars, in a way identical to how Jews were transported during World War II to the Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz.”

Psychiatry was in its infancy in Brazil during the hospital's operation, and it suffered from a severe lack of qualified medical staff. By the late 1950s, psychiatrists and clinicians were still a rarity. Despite documented complaints about the dire conditions dating back to 1914, the hospital consistently received supplementary funding from the Legislative Assembly. This funding was a political concession after Barbacena lost its bid to become the capital of Minas Gerais, turning the institution into a dumping ground for society's "scum."

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“although it was a hospital, Colônia lacked doctors. Until the end of the 1950s, psychiatrists and clinicians remained a rarity there.”