Wave of Deportation from Obrawalde, Meseritz (Frankfurt a. d. Oder), Brandenburg, Germany to Koscian, Koscian, Poznan, Poland on 09/02/1940

In the fall of 1939, Gauleiter Franz Schwede-Coburg, district leader of Pomerania, ordered the relevant departments to reduce the capacity or close most of the psychiatric hospitals in his province, under the pretext of a necessary evacuation for vital military purposes. He did so independently, even before the implementation of Action T4. All of the patients of the hospitals in Treptow, Ueckermünde, Lauenburg, Meseritz-Obrawalde, and Stralsund were to be killed, among them an unspecified number of Jews. The first deportation wave took place between October 1939 and January 1940. Schwede-Coburg assigned SS-Obersturmbannführer Kurt Eimann the duty of murdering the patients. A total 1,285 patients from these hospitals were subsequently assembled in the Stralsund hospital (IV. Pommersche Provinzial-Heilanstalt) and from there deported in at least ten transports to Neustadt in Westpreußen (Wejherowo), where they were shot in the woods of Groß Piasnitz (Piaśnica) as part of the mass executions known as the Massacres in Piaśnica. Among them were mentally ill patients from Obrawalde (Obrzyce).

The psychiatric hospital Obrawalde (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Obrawalde), also referred to as State Hospital Meseritz-Obrawalde (Landeskrankenanstalt) was established in 1904 as an institution for the mentally ill in the Prussian province of Posen (Poznań) near the town of Meseritz (Międzyrzecz). In the fall of 1938, the hospital became part of the municipal association of Pomerania (Provinzialverband Pommern). In early 1939, approximately 900 patients were accommodated in Obrawalde, and by the end of the same year the number increased to more than 2,000 after a large number of patients was moved from closed psychiatric institutions in Berlin. It included an unknown number of Jews. ...