The Fate of Czech Psychiatric Patients During World War II.

This paper briefly surveys what happened to psychiatric patients in Czech institutions during World War II. Archival materials are incomplete and not always available, so conclusions are tentative. Psychiatric hospitals were taken over by German physicians in the annexed lands of Bohemia and Moravia, and many patients were transferred out of the hospitals, probably to gas chambers—although the actual evidence is lacking. Many patients died, but no evidence has been found that Czech psychiatrists were ever actively engaged in the procedures of extermination. Czech eugenic ideology of that time period would have made such participation unlikely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]