INFORMATION PORTAL OF THE MARSHAL'S OFFICE OF THE KUJAWSKO-POMORSKIE Region IN TORUŃ

Eighty-six years ago, in the former Pomeranian Voivodeship, Germans carried out the extermination of 30,000 Poles – workers, farmers, teachers, intellectuals, clergy, and people with mental illnesses. The Memorial to the Victims of the Pomeranian Crime in Toruń is a special symbolic site honoring all the victims of this annihilation. On the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the German Pomeranian Crime of 1939 (October 2), tribute was paid to the murdered by Marshal Piotr Całbecki, President of the Regional Parliament Elżbieta Piniewska, Vice-Marshal Zbigniew Ostrowski, and regional councilor Tadeusz Pogoda.

“We remember the victims of the Pomeranian Crime on October 2, the birthday of Dr. Józef Bednarz, director of the psychiatric hospital in Świecie and one of the victims of this annihilation. We chose this date in defiance of death, so that this place may become our signpost for the future. Monuments only have meaning if we transform [their symbolic message] into something that lives in our hearts and minds,” said Marshal Piotr Całbecki during the ceremony at the Memorial Park.

“It will be your duty to preserve memory, because memory means awareness, identity, an obligation to those who were killed, who fell, who are no longer here,” Chairwoman Elżbieta Piniewska told the youth gathered at the monument. “But memory is also something that can be turned into good, into truth, and into beauty.”

Also present at the Memorial Park ceremony were Senator Ryszard Bober, Jan Wyrowiński – opposition activist before 1980 and Deputy Speaker of the Senate of the 8th term, Deputy Voivode Michał Koniuch, NATO Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz Deputy Commander General Zoltán Bárány, as well as representatives of local governments, clergy, uniformed services, scouts, and students from Toruń schools.

The Kujawsko-Pomorskie observance of the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the German Pomeranian Crime of 1939 was divided into two parts. In the Memorial Park, scouts from the Kujawsko-Pomorskie ZHP presented the performance Never Again. The ceremony was also enriched by musicians of the Pomeranian Philharmonic under the direction of Maciej Puto. Participants honored the victims of war by laying remembrance candles at the monument.

In the second part of the anniversary, invited guests visited the Marshal’s Office, where they viewed an exhibition on the extermination of people with mental illnesses and took part in a panel discussion devoted to Dr. Józef Bednarz, director of the Świecie psychiatric hospital.

The extermination of the Polish population had been planned even before the German army entered the territory of the Second Polish Republic. From September to December 1939 and in early 1940, in 400 localities of the then Pomeranian Voivodeship, local Germans from the Selbstschutz Westpreussen organization, supported by the Wehrmacht and SS units, carried out mass executions of Poles based on previously prepared lists.

In the Kujawsko-Pomorskie region, we remember the victims of this brutal crime in a special way. In 2018, at the initiative of Marshal Piotr Całbecki, on land provided by the city of Toruń, we unveiled a monument dedicated to all victims of the annihilation, including clergy, teachers, patients, and the hospital director in Świecie, Józef Bednarz. Additional monuments and installations followed, as well as the creation of the Memorial Park – a unique place of reflection and contemplation.

The regional government was also one of the initiators behind the establishment by the Polish Parliament in 2023 of the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Pomeranian Crime of 1939. Ceremonies dedicated to the victims of the Pomeranian Crime are held throughout the region, with further commemorations taking place in Nakło County – in Paterek and Słupówek.

This year, on September 22, we also marked for the first time the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Extermination of People with Mental Illnesses. Ceremonies with the participation of representatives of the regional government were held at the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship Psychiatric Hospital in Świecie. The commemoration coincided with the 170th anniversary of this institution.

Beata Krzemińska
Press Spokesperson of the Marshal’s Office

October 2, 2025