„Nagie życie” w zakładach dla psychicznie i nerwowo chorych pod rządami nazistów

Abstract

The principal hypothesis of our inquiry states that the mechanisms of power and controlling human life, practiced by the Nazis during WW 2, reflected the modern approach to the human defined in the categories of life unworthy of life. The studies conducted hitherto in the context of the above hypothesis focus on the sites which in the wake of commemorating the extermination are treated as symbols of the genocide industry, such as the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. In turn, this article aims to investigate the validity of the hypothesis with regards to a site which so far has not been considered in cultural studies – (for example the Hospital for the Mentally Ill “Dziekanka” in Gniezno – in addition, we treat this hospital as the exemplification of the wider ideological, political, economic phenomenon). I wish to show that the phenomena of reducing and destroying human life, which held no value for the authority, was virtually identical regardless of the place where the extermination took place. Thus, we will establish a new point on the map of memory of the victims of Nazi policies, a site where the annihilation was carried out, at the same time demonstrating the particular features associated with that particular space. The “might” of the German authority during World War 2 was founded on tremendous attention to detail; consequently, that which took place in the sites of mass extermination proceeded in much the same way in those places which are now hardly remembered.