Since 2004, the »Lüneburg Educational and Memorial Centre Victims of Nazi Psychiatry«, located on the premises of the Lüneburg psychiatric clinic, has commemorated the hospital's mentally ill patients who were murdered in the National Socialist »euthanasia« programme.
The Lüneburg psychiatric hospital was opened in 1901. Already in 1934, doctors sterilised about 300 of their patients on the grounds of a »Hereditary Health Court« ruling and the »Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring« at the Lüneburg hospital. In 1941, about 500 patients from Lüneburg were transferred to one of six mental hospitals in which the National Socialist authorities had set up »euthanasia killing centres« for handicapped people. There, SS doctors and medical personnel asphyxiated the patients with poison gas. The campaign was code named »T4« in reference to the postal address of the central office in Berlin's Tiergartenstraße. In the autumn of 1941, one of the over 30 »children's wards« was established in Lüneburg. Here, between 300 and 400 mentally and physically handicapped children from Northern Germany were murdered by poison pills and injections. From September 1944, about 60 mentally ill labourers from the Soviet Union and from Poland were gathered in Lüneburg and transferred to one of the killing centres in December.
In 1941, in the course of the »Action T4«, 500 mentally and physically ill patients from all of Northern Germany were brought to Lüneburg and from there transferred to one of the killing centres. Between 300 and 400 handicapped children from Northern Germany were murdered at the Lüneburg »special children's ward«. About 60 forced labourers from Poland and the German-occupied Soviet territories were taken to killing centres via Lüneburg.
The »Lüneburg Educational and Memorial Centre Victims of Nazi Psychiatry« was opened on November 25, 2004. It is located in the water tower building on the premises of the Lüneburg psychiatric clinic.
- Name
- Bildungs- und Gedenkstätte »Opfer der NS-Psychiatrie« Lüneburg
- Address
-
Am Wienebütteler Weg 1
21339 Lüneburg - Phone
- +49 (0)4131 602 0970
- Web
- http://www.pk.lueneburg.de/gedenkstaette
- info@gedenkstaette-lueneburg.de
- Open
- Every third Saturday of the month between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., and by appointment
- Possibilities
- Permanent exhibition