Commemorative ceremony at the Pirna-Sonnenstein Memorial
December 9, 2025, marks the 85th anniversary of the first mass transport of patients from the former Provincial Institute for the Mentally Ill in Opava to the extermination facility in Pirna, Saxony. A memorial gathering will be held on this occasion on December 15 at 1:00 p.m. at the Pirna-Sonnenstein Memorial (Schloßpark 1, Pirna).
The patients from Opava were the first victims of the local gas chamber from the territory of today’s Czech Republic. The chamber was established as part of the Nazi „euthanasia“ program, and by the spring of 1941, further transports followed, not only from Opava, but also from Šternberk. The total number can be estimated at several hundred people of Czech, German, Polish, and Jewish origin.
Since its establishment in 2000, the Pirna-Sonnenstein Memorial has sought to commemorate as many as possible of the 13,720 victims of this site of the Nazi regime’s first mass murder. The memorial ceremony is the first commemorative gathering to be held in cooperation with the Silesian Museum in Opava and with the participation of representatives of organizations for people with disabilities, churches, national minorities, Jewish organizations, the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and other organizations from the Czech Republic.