State commemoration ceremony on January 27, 2009
"In handling ill and disabled people the quality of a society becomes apparent", Prime Minister Beck said on January 27 in Klingenmünster. On the German commemoration day for the victims of Nazi dictatorship, the Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate extended an invitation to take part in an external session at the "Pfalzklinikum for Psychiatry and Neurology". The state government and a great number of guests accepted the invitation, among them patients and their relatives as well as employees of the "Pfalzklinikum".
This great event was helped shape by the ST-Band, a music band of the ward of social therapy in the "Pfalzinstitut", under the direction of music therapist Saskia Schmitt and male nurse Rudi Pericki. With their tunes they reminded of "The Children of Izieu" and with the songs "Das hat die Welt noch nicht gesehn" ("The World Has Not Seen That Before") and "Was wir alleine nicht schaffen, das schaffen wir dann zusammen"("What We Don’t Achieve On Our Own, We Achieve Together") they made a link to the present.
The president of the "Landtag", Joachim Mertes, appreciated the commemoration work done at the "Pfalzklinikum" which had set a new, clearly visible sign by inaugurating the Palatinate memorial for the victims of Nazi psychiatry at the hospital cemetery in April 2008. He announced an amendment of the State Archive Law to facilitate research and to be able "to give back" to the victims "their names and, thus, their dignity, too".
The "meaning of commemoration for us today" was in the centre of Theo Wieder’s speech. The president of the "Bezirkstag" stressed that beyond commemoration it was necessary "to resolutely oppose any contempt of human dignity wherever you might encounter it" and he promised that the "Pfalzklinikum" and the "Bezirksverband Pfalz" were going to continue to meet the challenge of helping shape a society where prejudices, ignorance and pride had no chances".
Dr. Georg Lilienthal, the manager of the memorial of Hadamar, had put his speech under the heading "The killing of sick persons in the Nazi time and commemoration in Rhineland-Palatinate". By telling the story of assassinated patients’ lives he gave an impressive report of the anxieties and torments of mentally ill and disabled people who were looking for help and met their death. About 300 patients from Klingenmünster were sent to the gas chamber of the death camp Hadamar and other camps under the pretext of taking a shower. About 1.700 further patients died in the former "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Klingenmünster" from purposeful deprivation of food, denial of assistance or an overdose of drugs.
The Lutheran pastor Wolfgang Roth and the Catholic lay pastor Michael Reis from the ecumenical team of the hospital’s pastoral care led the visitors to the memorial for the wreath laying ceremony. At the sculpture "Between the blades" created by the Palatine sculptor Volker Krebs they said words of commemoration and a prayer. They underlined that an important objective of the commemoration work was also "to provide clarity for the future: that we were attentive with a view to the people entrusted to us and to ourselves …. and that, thus, with our work we fostered life.
The staff council of the "Pfalzklinikum" had invited to come to the hospital church for commemoration the day before. As an elected representation of the employees the council, thus, reinforced its resolution passed the previous year when, on the occasion of the inauguration of the memorial, it committed itself to be vigilant against discrimination, contempt and exclusion of people".
