Wave of Deportation from Gostynin, Gostynin, Warszawa, Poland to Łącki Las, forest, Murder Site, Poland on 03/02/1940

Among the state psychiatric institutions in the Wartheland whose patients were murdered was the Gostynin (Gasten) psychiatric hospital, situated halfway between Płock and Kutno in central Poland. The hospital, located some 5 kilometers outside of the city center in the hamlet of Zalesie, was built between 1929 and 1933 and run by the Polish state.

The Wehrmacht occupied Gostynin on September 16, 1939. At that time, the hospital served 459 mentally ill patients and an unknown number of war refugees. The facility had two directors, Dr. Eugeniusz Wilczkowski and Dr. Karol Mikulski. Another senior staff member, who headed the facility temporarily, was Dr. Anna Kulikowska. After the war, she gave testimony and wrote a memoir about events at the hospital. She reported that the Germans talked down to the civilian personnel and separated Jews from non-Jews in the hospital’s refectory. ...