Memorial plaque for ‘euthanasia’ victims from the Ochsenzoll hospital

In 2009, a plaque was placed outside Walter-Behmann-Haus (Building 42) in the grounds of what is now the Asklepios Klinik Nord. It commemorates the patients who were transferred from there to Nazi killing and detention facilities. Until 1938 the clinic was known as the Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn (Langenhorn State Hospital), but after 1938 it was named the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn (Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home). 

The text on the plaque reads:

‘During the National Socialist period from 1939-1945, more than 3,600 people were deported from the grounds of this clinic to killing and detention facilities in the context of the “euthanasia programme”. Over 2,400 of them died as a result, including 135 Jewish patients in 1940. More than 20 children were murdered in the ‘special children’s ward’. We commemorate these victims here. Their fate admonishes us to treat every human being with dignity and care.’

Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) have been laid for 23 victims of what was known as the ‘special children’s ward’. In 2015, the Hamburg Senate voted to install an artwork here and to establish a site of learning and remembrance as well. Since 2017, two rooms in the Museum of Medical History (Medizinhistorisches Museum, Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20246 Hamburg, Building N30) have held an exhibition on medical crimes under the Nazis.

The website at http://www.hamburger-euthanasie-opfer.de lists the names of more than 4,700 victims of Nazi ‘euthanasia’ from Hamburg who were killed during the Second World War. A total of more than 6,000 people were deported from medical facilities in Hamburg under the Nazis.