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Grossschweidnitz (Staatliche
Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Grossschweidnitz)
The Kinderfachabteilung in Grossschweidnitz was established in December
1943 as the third of (what today is the state of) Saxony's three
special children's wards and the
last one known to have been established of all of these wards. It was a
replacement for Leipzig-Dösen, which took up patients from the
bombed-out university clinic in Leipzig that year. It
continued to operate until May 1945. The
clinic's medical director
was Dr. Alfred Schulz, who was charged in the Dresden trial but died
while in detention in 1947. The physician responsible for
the "special children's ward" was Dr. Artur Mittag, who had previously
been
responsible for the ward at Leipzig-Dösen and who committed suicide in
1946.
140 children had died in the special
children's ward by the end of 1944, based on an analysis of the
registration book, with a sharp decline of children present between
January and March 1945. Based on Dr. Mittag's statement under
arrest that he was responsible for 800 killings, and the fact that 505
killings had been documented for Leipzig-Dösen (the number has since been revised upward), it has been assumed that at
least 300 children were murdered there.
Of
about 10,000 patients who were housed in the Grossschweidnitz clinic
between 1939 and May 1945, 2,400 patients were transported
to T4 gassing facilities, and about 5,000 died during "wild
euthanasia" as the consequence of being killed by medication, neglect,
or starvation. Both in absolute numbers and a percentage of the overall
patient population, the mortality in this clinic was among the highest
in the entire German areas. In fact, the killing of patients by
poisoning them had be authorized and requested as early as August 1939
by the Saxon Ministry of the Interior, and accounts exist which date
the killing of children there in late 1940. The mortality rate among
the patients in 1940 was 21%, whereas in the years 1933 to 1938 it had
been under 5% on average (Böhm 2002, p. 41, in Sonnenstein).
In the early 1980s, a
first reference was made to Grossschweidnitz in the book of Ernst Klee.
This came to the attention of the then director, Dr. Manfred Oertel,
who also received requests for information from West German relatives
of former patients who might have been transported to Grossschweidnitz
(and died there), and the director of the Katharinenhof in
Grosshennersdorf also found information that children had been
transported from there to Grossschweidnitz. Dr. Oertel and
colleagues discovered that medical records and statistics still
existed, and that on the basis of extant records these children had
then been transported to a T4 gassing facility (they were murdred in
Pirna-Sonnenstein). Such information was provided in the education of
nurses in training on site since the 1980s, and they were asked to tend
to the cemetery. The knowledge of the trauma in the past was also still
present locally then, as is evident when, for example, older patients
who were receiving outpatient care, when physicians recommended that
they come in for inpatient or stationary treatment, often rejected that recommendation replying "I don't
want to die."
Dr. Oertel
and a then-medical student, Holm Krumpolt, began advocating for a
proper form of commemoration in the final years of the German
Democratic Republic. Dr. Krumpolt wrote a dissertation on the subject
of euthanasia in Grossschweidnitz.
Photo credit: Detlef Hermann; author.
Funded by the clinic and reflecting a local
initiative, a memorial stone by the sculptor
Detlef Hermann was placed in the clinic's cemetery in 1990. It is
conceived as a crosscut through a mass-grave (as it actually surrounded
by such a grave), unearthed and thereby
bringing murdered patients back from anonymity. The dead are covered by
a thick layer of
soil, as if the past had been
covered up, the memories repressed, and the dead forgotten. The red x
marks represent the desk murders at T4 and their activities as
evaluators of the questionnaires and the fates of the patients (a red
plus sign meant 'treatment'). Around the memorial is a field with a
vast mass
grave.
Source: author
A plaque,
which
was placed at the entrance to the cemetery at the time, reads: "Memorial - For the over
5000 victims of 'Euthanasia' 1940 to 1945, who here found their resting
place in mass graves.- Because as being sick they were 'different,'
they were 'checked and sorted out.' Their fate as a warning to the
healthy for all times. The clinic."
The book published by the clinic on occasion of
the its 100th anniversary in 2002 addresses the events between 1933 and
1946 openly. The chronicle of the town on occasion of its 700th
anniversay also refers in its section on the hospital to the
"euthanasia" murders (p. 14), although in a different section it uses
the term "state-mandated assisted dying" (vom Staat verfügte Sterbehilfe; p. 36) to refer to the historical events.
The history page of the clinic's website
addresses the historical events during 1933-1945 as well, even though
the special children's ward is not expressly mentioned.
On
site, Dr, Krumpolt has offered lectures on "euthanasia crimes" over the
years and seeks to establish a museum exhibit on "Euthanasia" crimes
with the support of the mayor of Grossschweidnitz. The town's
website has begun to provide information about the development of this
undertaking on a dedicated page. The historian who currently conducts research for the exhibit is Dr. Dietmar Schulze.
Children
who were murdered in Grossschweidnitz are featured in two exhibits and
a memorial. One of them, the life and death of Ursula Heidrich, who was
murdered in 1945 on the basis of being disabled, is part of the
permanent exhibit at the memorial Pirna-Sonnenstein (see T4 memorials)
and is also commemorated in a "Mahndepot" (memorial depot) in Dresden.
As the organizers note, "memorial depots in Dresden mark places of
memory. Only their lids
remain visible: 6 cm in diameter, engraved with the word ORT (location)
and a corresponding number. Each sealed capsule contains a text with
the biography of the particular place in relation to the history of
Dresden during the Second World War as well as a current photograph."
On Ursula Heidrich, see here and here.
Lothar S., who was murdered at Grossschweidnitz at age 10
on the basis of having trisomy 21, died in Dec. 1940 after being
transported from the Katharinenhof Grosshennersdorf, with most of the
other children being further transported to the extermination facility
Pirna-Sonnenstein. His story is part of the exhibit "NS-'Euthanasia' in
Court" (NS-"Euthanasie" vor Gericht) (see exhibits).
Literature
Benzenhöfer, Udo. 2003. "Genese und Struktur der
'NS-Kinder- und Jugendlicheneuthanasie.'" Monatsschrift für Kinderheilkunde
151: 1012-1019.
Böhm, Boris. 1997. Erinnerung
wi(e)der Vergessen: Gedenkbuch für die Kinder des Katharinenhofes
Grosshennersdorf, die auf dem Sonnenstein in Pirna und in
Grossschweidnitz ermordet wurden. Dresden and Pirna: Kuratorium Gedenkstätte Sonnenstein e.V.
Gemeindeverwaltung Grossschweidnitz, ed. 2006. Festchronik 700 Jahre Grossschweidnitz. Grossschweidnitz: n.p.
Goldenberg, Gisela. 2001. "Zur Erinnerung an Eckhard Goldenberg." Unpublished ms.
Krankenhaus Grossschweidnitz. 2002. 100
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———. 2001. "Die Landesanstalt Grossschweidnitz als 'T4'-Zwischenanstalt
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Akte: Das Geheimnis einer Familie. Frankfurt: weissbooks.
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‘Reichsausschuss zur
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Zur
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Pp. 17-54 in Kinder in der NS-Psychiatrie,
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———. 2005. "Der 'Reichsausschuß zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung erb-
und anlagebedingter schwerer Leiden': Die Ermordung minderjähriger
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