Kościan and the Euthanasia (action T4)

Hospital in Kościan

"Kościan (47 km from Poznań) was one of the first places where Nazi euthanasia action took place, even before such measures had commenced in Germany and Austria. The reasoning behind the "cleaning" of the Polish mental homes surely was almost certainly to obtain space for German troops at the beginning of the war.

In early 1940 the hospital in Kościan was taken over by the SS Sonderkommando Lange and the Gau-Selbstverwaltung (German Council Association) from Poznan. The Polish medical personnel were dismissed, leaving behind 612 Polish patients. Now the hospital was administered by Dr Johann Keste (psychiatrist), Dr. Fritz Lemberger (gynaecologist), Hans Meding (medical inspector) and Wilhelm Haydn (chief of the male nurses), killers in white doctor’s gowns.

In early January 1940, an SS Sonderkommando arrived, carrying a dark brown bottle containing a morphine-scopolamine mixture used to calm the victims.

Probably on 15 January 1940, the first group of naked patients received an injection and were bundled into a mobile gas chamber (gas van or gas trailer) inscribed with an advertisement for "Kaiser's Kaffee Geschäft". Of course, Kaiser's Coffee Company was not involved in the action. The van's (or trailer's) inner sides were lined with metal sheets, the floor was covered with a wooden grate and a lamp on the ceiling illuminated the gas chamber for inspection through a peephole in the back door.

When the driver (an SS man) started the vehicle's engine, the exhaust fumes were emitted into the loading space. The victims screamed loudly before they died. Then the gas van drove from Koscian to Jarogniewice Forest (a site on the road Koscian - Poznan, about 15-20 km north of Koscian). After 15-20 minutes the van finally reached the forest, and nobody in the gas chamber was left alive.

At Jarogniewice Forest prisoners (from KZ Fort VII in Poznan) opened the back doors of the gas van and buried the corpses in mass graves. One week later (on 22 January 1940) a second group of patients were killed in an identical fashion.

Within that week, all in all, 534 patients had been killed - 237 men and 297 women. However, this was only the beginning of a more extensive action in Koscian. On 9 February a transport from Germany with 2,750 Jewish and non-Jewish (German) patients from mental and old people's homes arrived in Koscian. All were killed in the same manner as the first patients. It is most likely that on 24 February 1940 the last transport left Koscian Hospital for Jarogniewice Forest. In total, 3,334 patients lost their lives in course of this euthanasia action in Koscian." (1)