[Unimaginable violence in psychiatry--some reflections after a visit to Poland].

What was the situation of the staff, when the Germans began, in the autumn of 1939, to murder systematically the patients in Polish clinics? A documentation of a fact-finding committee and a novel by Lem are studied for answers to this question. The patients themselves tried to resist. Whereas the staff are described as having been in the hopeless position of being unable to take any action. However, in very special situations the possibility of resistance was found.