Extermination of mental patients of the 4th Soviet psychiatric hospital in Vinnytsia during the Nazi occupation (1941-1944)

Abstract

Among the massive crimes committed by the Nazis in the occupied territories during the Second World War, the crimes connected with the destruction of patients of psychiatric hospitals are insufficiently researched for today. Such criminal acts were not accidents or isolated cases, but were carried out in accordance with the official eugenic program of the German National Socialists for sterilization and then physical destruction of people with mental disorders, mentally retarded and hereditarily burdened patients. The article was written within the framework of the grant project "Return to the collective memory of the society of forgotten victims of the Second World War of Vinnytsia region". The project is implemented jointly by the public organizations "People's Maidan Vinnytchiny" and "German youth in Europe" with the support of the German fund "EVZ", the regional administration in partnership with the Faculty of History Ethnology and Law of Vinnytsia State Pedagogical University named after M. Kotsiubynsky. The archival materials of the State Archives of the Vinnytsia Region, developed by the research group, and the declassified files of the UAS Archive allowed the reconstruction of the events that took place in the Vinnitsa psychiatric hospital during the Nazi occupation in detail. In the article, based on the analysis of archival documents introduced the on first time and the latest research, the process of destroying patients in the Vinnytsia psychiatric hospital during the Nazi occupation was highlighted. It is pointed out that insufficient attention by Ukrainian researchers was paid to the problem. The main sources of the topic are analyzed. The general algorithms and features of committing criminal acts are disclosed. Methods of killing patients have been determined. The involvement of medical staff of the hospital to the death of patients is established, the degree of guilt and responsibility for the acts committed is described.