On 13 August 1941 the Reich Association of Jews in Germany notifies its district offices that it must pay for the care and burial of the Jewish patients at the psychiatric hospital in Chełm¹BArch, R 8150/7, fol. 222. This document has been translated from German.

Letter from Dr Conrad Israel Cohn, Reich Association of Jews in Germany, Welfare Department, Berlin-Charlottenburg, 158 Kantstraße, to the Jewish communities with more than 1,000 members and the district offices of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany, dated 13 August 1941

Re: invoices from the Cholm mental asylum²The formerly Polish psychiatric hospital in Chełm (Cholm), where the patients had already been murdered, was used as a cover address to conceal the killings of Jewish patients in the ‘euthanasia’ killing centres in the Reich. Family members received notification that the patient had died in the Chełm psychiatric hospital. See Introduction, p. 34.

It has been decided that we must pay the costs of the care and burial of mentally ill Jews who have been transferred to the Cholm mental asylum from the Old Reich, including the Sudetenland. The Cholm mental asylum will continue to send the bills as before to the religious congregations and district offices which were formerly responsible. Payment, however, will not be made by the individual religious congregations and district offices, but rather from here, in a separate procedure.

We ask the [Jewish] communities and district offices to forward to us, without delay, the invoices now in their possession from the Cholm mental asylum – including those they already submitted to us previously. An accompanying letter commenting on the individual cases must be enclosed with the invoices. In particular, precise information is required as to whether the mentally ill person concerned was a member of the Reich Association and whether the costs of care were previously borne in full or in part by the [Jewish] Community (district office). In cases where full or partial payment is to be made by individuals, the exact address of the person responsible for payment (family member, legal guardian, carer) must be provided. If applicable, reference must be made to existing pension entitlements.

If, in accordance with point 2 of our letter dated 12 June 1941,³BArch, R 8150/7, fol. 223. legal guardians, caregivers or other persons have returned to the depositors any collected pension subsidies received for the period following evacuation, with the request that these sums and any future payments be transferred to the Cholm mental asylum, a specific note must be made of this. In addition, invoices from individuals paying in full are not to be returned to the Cholm mental asylum. Instead, they must be forwarded to us with precise information on the person responsible for payment. We will then have the sums from these payers refunded to us in a central special account. If invoices are received concerning non-members of the Reich Association (such as Mischlinge of the first degree who are not regarded as Jews etc.), these must also be forwarded to us with a note to this effect, so that we can then return them all to the (Cholm) mental asylum.