Konradstein [Kocborowo] (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Landesanstalt für psychisch Kranke)

The Kinderfachabteilung in Konradstein/Kocborowo was established in 1942 at the latest (possibly as early as 1940) and continued until 1944 (Soviet liberation). Dr. Waldemar Siemens (who had the name Schimansky until 1939) became director after Germany's invasion of Poland. The physician reported to be responsible for the special children's ward, located in stations/pavilions X (girls, first floor) and XI (boys), was deputy director Dr. Hans Arnold Schmidt. Dr. Siemens is considered missing since 1945, as his whereabouts have been unknown.

The then largest facilty for mentally ill in all of Poland, Kocborowo was the hospital where the first killing of mentally disabled and sick patients in Poland by Germans was carried out, on September 22, 1939, very likely by the Wachsturmbann Eimann (see Riess 1995; 2004: 128-29; Schenk). The SS murdered the director and clinic personnel and until Jan. 1940 had transported almost 1,700 patients to the nearby Szpegawski Forest (including 130 children brought in from an affiliated clinic), where the SS shot them. The total number of patients who either died there or were transported off to their death is estimated to have been approx. 4,000. Of those, about 500-550 were children of the "Reichsausschuss" from the Gdansk/Danzig area and the Reichsgebiet--a comparatively very large number--for whom 360 hospital records with fictitious causes of death remain extant. It is possible that the corpses of child victims were among those sent from Kocborowo to Rudolf Spanner, the director of the Anatomical Institute in Gdansk (Danzig), and were used in Dr. Spanner's experimental production of soap from human fat.

Source: http://www.tiergartenstrasse4.org/Killing_of_Mental_Patients_in_Pomerania,119.html; http://www.kocborowo.pl/plan_szpitala.html

The list of 360 child and youth victims, with their names and the dates of their births, is, given in Zdzisław Jaroszewski, ed., 1989. Pacjenci i pracownicy szpitali psychiatrycznych w Polsce zamordowani przez okupanta Hitlerowskiego i los tych szpitali w latach 1939-1945. Vol. 2: Imienne wykazy zamordowanych. The earliest death is recorded for late 1939, but the number of deaths does not rise significantly until about August/September 1941, when 15 of the 19 deaths of that year occured. A few deaths are recorded as late as the end of December 1944.

Child and Youth "Euthanasia" Victims at Kocborowo Hospital

Year	Deaths
1939	1
1940	7
1941	19
1942	73
1943	142
1944	108

Source: Author's calculations, based on Jaroszewski 1989.

Source: http://www.panoramio.com/user/1616337
The history of events concering "euthanasia" murders were known by 1948 at the latest, when a local physician, Dr. Tadeusz Bilikiewicz, chronicled them. In 1949 a commemorative display was erected on the clinic premises. It reads "In memory of those murdered by the Nazi barbarians at the hospital, in prisons, and in the Szpegawski forest - 2,203 mentally ill patients and several hundred children and hospital employees" (pamieci zamordowanych przez barbarzyncow hitlerowskich w szpitalu w wiezieniach I w lasach czpegawaskich 2203 psychicznie chorych kilkuset chorych dzieci i pracownikow szpitala), followed by a list of murdered hospital personnel. There are also memorial stones in the Szpegawski forest itself.

Twenty years after WWII Stanisław Krzysztof Szwentner found hospital records in the basement of the hospital, which were subsequently used for a detailed depiction of the historical events in Krystyna Szwentnerowa's book (1968).

picture of kocborowo memorial on All Saints

Source: http://niewiarowicz.republika.pl/small1/th_dsc00226.jpg and http://www.panoramio.com/photo/26309604

There is a memorial stone with a display in the nearby cemetery (Cmentarz przy szpitalu psychiatrycznym w Kocborowie), established by the local boy scout group. It reads: "In memory of more than 500 child patients murdered by the Nazis during the years 1939-1945. The Starogard scouts in the international year of the child 1979" (pamieci ponad 500 dzieci pacjentow szpitala zamordowanych przez hitlerowcow w latach 1939-1945 Harcerze starogardze w miedzynarodowym roku dziecka 1979). The cemetery appears to be largely overgrown and almost abandoned, but the boy scouts have periodically maintained the memorial, while formal commemorative ceremonies occur in the Szpegawski Forest. A picture taken shortly taken after All Saints/All Souls day at the beginning of November 2009 shows artifacts of private commemoration having taking place at the memorial..

Picture of the clinic

Source: http://www.kocborowo.pl/foto/galeria_male/020.jpg
The web site of the clinic today, Szpital dla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych, does not refer to this part of the institution's past.

For commemorative events at the Szpegawski Forest see here (and here for further information).

Literature

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

Bilikiewicz, Tadeusz. 1948. "Polityka sanitarna okupanta na Pomorzu." Polski Tygodnik Lekarski 47: 1423-24; 48: 1456; 49: 1485-88; 50: 1512-20; 51: 1550-51 (see pp. 1519-20).

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.

Karski, Anna-Renata. 2003. "Der polnische Psychiater Tadeusz Bilikiewicz (1901-1980) als Medizinhistoriker." Medical Dissertation, University of Leipzig.

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.

Riess, Volker. 1995. Die Anfänge der Vernichtung "lebensunwerten Lebens" in den Reichsgauen Danzig-Westpreussen und Wartheland 1939/40. Frankfurt: Lang.

———. 2004. "Zentrale und dezentrale Radikalisierung: Die Tötungen 'unwerten Lebens' in den annektierten west- und nordpolnischen Gebieten 1939-1941." Pp. 127-44 in Genesis des Genozids: Polen, 1939-1941, edited by K.-M. Mallmann and B. Musial. Darmstadt: Westliche Buchgesellschaft.

Schenk, Dieter. 2000. Hitlers Mann in Danzig: Albert Forster und die NS-Verbrechen in Danzig-Westpreussen. Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz Nachfolger.

Slawinska, Irena, and Franciszek Scigala. 1989. "Kocborowo." Pp. 8-14 in Pacjenci i pracownicy szpitali psychiatrycznych w Polsce zamordowani przez okupanta Hitlerowskiego i los tych szpitali w latach 1939-1945. Vol. 1: Szpitale. edited by Zdzislaw Jaroszewski. Warsaw: n. p.

———. 1993. "Kocborowo (Conradstein): Landesanstalt für Psychisch Kranke." Pp. 56-71 in Die Ermordung der Geisteskranken in Polen, 1939-1945, edited by Zdzislaw Jaroszewski. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Szwentnerowa, Krystyna. 1968. Zbrodnia na Via Mercatorum. Gdynia: Wydawnictwo morskie.

Tiergartenstrasse 4 Association. "Killing of Mental Patients in Pomerania." Available at http://www.tiergartenstrasse4.org/Killing_of_Mental_Patients_in_Pomerania,119.html

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.