Fire in a psychiatric hospital

Fire in a psychiatric hospital

The action, A fire in a psychiatric hospital, was planned for a selected place in the space of Bydgoszcz. The assumption referred directly to the historical event of 1980, - the outbreak of a fire in a psychiatric hospital in Górna Grupa. The audio-visual transmission used the text of Jacek Kaczmarski's song, We do not want to run away from Przemysław Gintrowski. A fire in a psychiatric hospital was for Kaczmarski a pretext for a metaphorical description of the political situation in Poland at that time. The piece, made by Gintrowski with passion, strength and anger, still has an actual message.

The symbolic reference to the history of the 1980s, on the one hand, an attempt to commemorate whether to restore the memory of those events and unfortunate circumstances, and further socio-political message and civic voice to the existing reality.

A fire in a psychiatric hospital in Górna Grupa

The fire broke out on the night of October 31, November 1, 1980 in the village of Górna Grupa, (about 50 km from Bydgoszcz). The immediate cause of the fire, which appeared just after 23:00, was a leaky chimney. The extensive former monastery building, then there were between 300 and 400 patients, spread over the second and third floor of the building, mostly in closed rooms, some tied  to bed. by straps. The patients of the hospital were mainly severely mentally ill, abandoned by families and relatives. 55 people were killed in the fire and 26 were severely burned. After the tragedy, forty-six victims were buried anonymously in a collective grave at the cemetery of the hospital in Świecie. It was not until the nineties that the names of people who died in the tragic circumstances were recorded on the pedestal of the cross, commemorating that event.