Nazi crimes against people with disabilities. The case of Tomakivka district, Dnipropetrivsk region

Abstract

This article is devoted to a local story from the history of crimes committed by the German occupiers on the territory of the Tomakivskyi district of the Dnipro region. One of the features of the Nazi policy both in Germany and in the occupied territories was the murder of people with special needs who were in the relevant institutions maintained by the state. Before the occupation, there were several social protection institutions in the Tomakivka district: an orphanage and a psychoneurological dispensary. With the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, some of the children in the orphanage were taken in by local villagers. However, children with disabilities were evacuated to the home from Zhytomyr, and during the occupation, they made up the majority of the dependents. After the occupation of Tomakivskyi district, the Mykhailivskyi orphanage and the Stepanivskyi psycho-neurological dispensary found themselves in a difficult situation. Their dependents suffered from a lack of food, and with the onset of cold weather, they were freezing, as the heating was also confiscated. Despite numerous appeals from the heads of the institutions, their requests remained unanswered. The situation was becoming dangerous and a special commission was set up, which included a doctor and representatives of the occupation administration and law enforcement agencies. This commission visited the institutions and decided that the inmates of the psychoneurological dispensary and the children from the orphanage were to be killed, as they had no prospect of recovery. In early March, the Jewish residents of the district were rounded up in the district centre of Tomakivka, and later sent to the Mykhailivskyi orphanage and kept together in a separate room. In March 1942, the administration of the institution informed the residents that the dependents, along with a group of Jews, were being transferred to other institutions where they would be able to eat properly and receive decent living conditions. After the gendarmerie and police arrived at the orphanage for the ‘relocation’, some of the teachers and children guessed the real purpose of the relocation and escaped. The rest were shot dead.