A flower placed as a memorial on the window sill of the former gas chamber...

The gas chamber was located in the basement of the men's ward. A fence was built around the building, which was located steps away from a cliff, so it was concealed from the rest of the camp. After the bodies were cremated the ashes were usually dumped into a wooded over the side of the cliff. Prior to 1939 Pirna-Sonnenstein had a reputation for it's altruistic treatment of disabled people. But when the Holocaust began, 13,720 mentally ill or handicapped people were killed at the institution by the Nazi regime under the "Action T4" extermination program. The methods and technology developed at Sonennenstein were later used on a much larger scale at death camps in the east.