Euthanasia and the Holocaust – Kobierzyn

Kobierzyn Mental Home

 

 

 

There were more than 1,000 patients in the Babinski hospital in Kobierzyn, near Krakow, when the war broke out. The Germans appointed two directors of the hospital – Zweck (a tradesman) until October 1940 and then Aleksander Kroll (an official from the Warsaw Health Service) until September 1942. There were 3 phases of liquidation at the hospital: starvation deportation of Jewish patients and finally mass murder. From the time Kroll took over the post, patients started to receive half of their usual food rations.

 

Before the final deportations almost half of the patients had died of malnutrition. On 9 and 11 September 1941, the Germans moved all Jewish patients, 91 people, in two transports to the Zofiowka sanatorium in Otwock near Warsaw. This group shared the fate of all Otwock Jews – some were gassed on 19 August 1942 in Treblinka, others shot at the premises of the sanatorium and buried in the garden there.

The preparations for the final liquidation started in May 1942. The hospital was visited by SS-Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Krüger and Hitlerjugend chief Axmann, who pressed for quick liquidation. Arthur Axmann needed the hospital for his “Hitler Youth”. The place for the burial pit was chosen. On 18 June 1942, Polish doctors, working at the hospital, received orders to move to the Drewnica hospital near Warsaw. They were banned from entering the Kobierzyn hospital departments and ordered to provide the personal files of all patients. On 23 June, Dr Werner Beck arrived, together with SS men under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Meyer and SS-Standartenführer Max Hammer.

 

The rest of the Polish personnel were locked in an old theatre building during the time of the aktion. 30 patients, who were temporarily on rehabilitation in a nearby Catholic convent, were transferred back to the hospital and were the first to be loaded on a truck and delivered to the Swoszowice railway station. Later, Kroll opened the wards and counted the patients, assisted by a German male nurse, Leo Zipper. SS men herded the patients to the trucks and transported them to the railway station.

 

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/kobierzyn.html

 

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

 

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2010