Gedenkstätte Großschweidnitz

Cemetery description

The Großschweidnitz Memorial Site is dedicated to victims of the Nazi Euthanasia program. The program led to the death of more than 5,500 sick women, men and children in the Großschweidnitz hospital, sanatorium and nursing home. The patients were killed by being administered large doses of tranquillizers, by being starved to death or by being left unattended to die. More than 2,000 persons were moved from Großschweidnitz to the Euthanasia Centre in Pirna-Sonnenstein and murdered there.
On the premises of the former hospital cemetery containing the graves of most of those victims, some Polish victims are buried as well. The majority found themselves in the Third Reich as forced labourers who were moved to Großschweidnitz because they either suffered from psychiatric diseases or were unable to work due to their exhaustion or other types of disease.
Until today, however, the identity of many of these people has not been established. The available data about the victims come solely from the patients’ medical records or the cemetery records. Nowadays, it is no longer possible to pinpoint particular graves since the cemetery has been redeveloped several times. After the war, an honourable cemetery for Polish and Soviet forced labourers was established and several memorial plaques with the names of the murdered were put up. In the late 1980s, the plaques were moved to a different place during another redevelopment project. Now, they mark the way leading to the monument that commemorates all the victims of Großschweidnitz. In 1990, a stone memorial was placed here to honour the thousands of victims of the National-Socialist Euthanasia program. There is another memorial on the premises of the former sanatorium and nursing home (the former morgue with the adjoining classroom and cemetery).
At present, a new memorial site is being created in the area of the former hospital cemetery. So far, the monument has been surrounded by several memorial plaques bearing the victims’ names. Additionally, it has been planned for the year 2022 to create an exhibition devoted to the victims and to this site and to establish a new documentation centre connected with the Saxon Memorial Foundation and the Memorialem Pirna Sonnenstein Memorial.

Address details