Tiegenhof [Dziekanka] (Landesheilanstalt Wojewodschafts-Anstalt für Psychiatrie Tiegenhof [Gnesen])

The Kinderfachabteilung in the facility Tiegenhof/Dziekanka near Gnesen/Gniezno was established in 1943 at the latest and continued at least until 1944. Dr. Wladimir Nikolajew became the director of the facility in 1941. After WWII, he appears to have lived in Uelzen. Dr. Walter Kipper was responsible for the special children's ward. After WWII, he lived in Gmunden/Austria and worked as a physician there.

At Tiegenhof, about 1,200 German and Polish patients were murdered by members of the SS Sonderkommando Lange, which also used mobile gassing vans, between December 1939 and mid 1941. Later Tiegenhof became a core "wild euthanasia" killing facility similar to Grossschweidnitz and Meseritz-Obrawalde. The number of children in the special children's ward and the number murdered is not known, as Polish publications on the clinic's history during Nazi occupation only mention parenthetically the involvement of children in the overall process of the murder of patients. The list of murdered psychiatric patients in Poland during the Nazi period published in Zdzisław Jaroszewski, ed., Pacjenci i pracownicy szpitali psychiatrycznych w Polsce zamordowani przez okupanta Hitlerowskiego i los tych szpitali w latach 1939-1945. Vol. 2: Imienne wykazy zamordowanych, for Dziekanka does not include the victims of "children's euthanasia."

Google Earth picture of Tiegenhof/Dziekanka

Source: Google Earth; http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MnKHPQ9i-10/SyHnpcVaXzI/AAAAAAAAB0I/-QhtoqNiFtE/s1600-h/Dziekanka+Lufz.jpg; author

In the context of its investigations against personnel involved with the transfer of patients from the Altersdorfer Anstalten in the late 1960s, personnel from the state attorney's office at Hamburg travelled to Dziekanka and had the following pictures taken, which refer to the men's and women's department, with special rooms dedicated to the killing of patients.

Source: Wunder, pp. 185-87

The clinic's name today is SP ZOZ Wojewódzki Szpital dla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych "Dziekanka" im. Aleksandra Piotrowskiego w Gnieznie. Its website has a history section, which addresses the euthanasia crimes between 1939 and 1945, with over 3,600 victims, but does not refer to "children's euthanasia" specifically.

Source: author

On the outer wall of the church Michal Kozal (here/here), which served as the chapel to the clinic, is a plaque commemorating hospital patients murdered by the Nazis during the occupation. It was placed there in 1948 and reads: "In honor of the dead and murdered staff and patients of the Department of Psychiatric Dzienkanka during the Nazi occupation 1939-1945. Employees of the Clinic in August 1948" (Ku czci poleglych i pomordowanych pracownikow i pacjentow Zakladu Psychiatrycznego Dzienkanka w latach okupacji 1939-1945 Pracownicy Zakladu Sierpień 1948).

An online commemoration of a victim (though not of the special children's ward) exists (1 / 2).

Mielno Obelisk

Source: http://www.informacjelokalne.home.pl/images/historia02/mielno_obelisk%20394.jpg

In 2009/2010 research was underway to establish whether murdered Dziekanka patients were buried in a nearby forest (1/2/3/4). A gravestone was placed in a forest in Mielno in 2010.

Literature

Publications by Polish authors in chronological order

Gallus, Jan. 1949. "Dziekanka w latach 1939-45 oraz jej udzial i rola w wyniszczeniu umyslowo chorych Polaków." Rocznik Psychiatryczny 37(1):75-91.

Jaroszewski, Zdzisław, ed. 1989. Pacjenci i pracownicy szpitali psychiatrycznych w Polsce zamordowani przez okupanta Hitlerowskiego i los tych szpitali w latach 1939-1945. Vol. 1: Szpitale. Vol. 2: Imienne wykazy zamordowanych. Warsaw: n. p.

———. 1993. "Dziekanka (Tiegenhof): Wojewodschafts-Anstalt für Psychiatrie." Pp. 86-103 in Die Ermordung der Geisteskranken in Polen, 1939-1945, edited by Zdzislaw Jaroszewski. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Jaska, Marian. 1994. Dzieje Wojewódzkiego Szpitala dla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych im. Aleksandra Piotrowskiego "Dziekanka" w Gnieźnie. U.p, u.p.

Nasierowski, Tadeusz. 2006. "In the Abyss of Death: The Extermination of the Mentally Ill in Poland During World War II." International Journal of Mental Health 35(3):50-61.

———. 2008, Zagłada osób z zaburzeniami psychicznymi w okupowanej Polsce. Warsaw: Neriton, pp. 87-92.

Tiergartenstrasse 4 Association. "Gniezno Asylum." Available at http://www.tiergartenstrasse4.org/GNIEZNO_ASYLUM,213.html

Kulesza, Witold. 2010. "'Euthanasie'-Morde an polnischen Psychiatriepatient/innen während des Zweiten Weltkriegs." Pp. 175-78 in Die nationalsozialistische "Euthanasie"-Aktion "T4" und ihre Opfer: Geschichte und ethische Konsequenzen für die Gegenwart, edited by Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf, Petra Fuchs, Paul Richter, Christoph Mundt, Wolfgang U. Eckart. Paderborn: Schöningh.

Other authors
Benzenhöfer, Udo. 2003. "Genese und Struktur der 'NS-Kinder- und Jugendlicheneuthanasie.'" Monatsschrift für Kinderheilkunde 151: 1012-1019.

Nowak, Karolina. 2009. "Die Vernichtung 'lebensunwerten Lebens' im Reichsgau Wartheland, 1939-1945." Master's Thesis in History, University of Freiburg.

Topp, Sascha. 2004. “Der ‘Reichsausschuss zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung erb- und anlagebedingter schwerer Leiden’: Zur Organisation der Ermordung minderjähriger Kranker im Nationalsozialismus 1939-1945.” Pp. 17-54 in Kinder in der NS-Psychiatrie, edited by Thomas Beddies and Kristina Hübener. Berlin-Brandenburg: Be.bra Wissenschaft.

———. 2005. "Der 'Reichsausschuß zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung erb- und anlagebedingter schwerer Leiden': Die Ermordung minderjähriger Kranker im Nationalsozialismus 1939-1945." Master's Thesis in History, University of Berlin.

Wunder, Michael, Ingrid Genkel, and Harald Jenner. 1988. Auf dieser Schiefen. Ebene gibt es kein halten mehr: Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten Im Nationalsozialismus. Hamburg: Agentur des Rauhen Hauses.