Wave of Deportation from Owinska, Poznan, Poznan, Poland to Fort VII Posen, Camp, Poland on 01/11/1939

Lange and his SS squad—Sonderkommando (SK) Lange—initiated their first known mass murder under the guise of euthanasia in the Wartheland. The date of the mass murder was October 15, 1939, at the earliest; the latest possible date is November 25 of that same year. This was accomplished through the liquidation of the psychiatric institution in Owińska (Treskau), 15 kilometers north of Poznań, close to the Poznań–Bydgoscz (Bromberg) railway line. In September 1939, the hospital sheltered around 1,100 patients, men, women, and children of all ages. Approximately 870 of them were Poles, 104 were ethnic Germans, and at least 30 were Jews.

The village of Owińska was occupied by Wehrmacht forces in mid-September 1939. The hospital was subsequently put under the authority of the Gauselbstverwaltung. The Polish director was replaced by a German, Rudolf Bartussek; the head nurse was replaced by Otto Meinike , also German. At the same time, physicians from the Reich arrived to examine the patients, among them Dr. Johannes Banse, who played an important role in the Warthegau’s euthanasia program. He examined and selected the patients to be handed over to the SS. The deportation lists he created have not been preserved, nor has the list of patients compiled by the hospital’s secretary. All files of the Owińska patients, together with these lists, had to be submitted to the Gauselbstverwaltung. Witnesses reported that the Polish staff was informed that the patients would be transferred to other hospitals in the Wartheland and the General Government (Generalgouvernement, the zone of Nazi-occupied central Poland not formally annexed to the Reich). ...