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Martha Mende * 1914

Billstedter Mühlenweg 16 (Hamburg-Mitte, Billstedt)

HIER WOHNTE
MARTHA MENDE
JG. 1914
EINGEWIESEN 14.8.1943
’HEILANSTALT’
AM STEINHOF / WIEN
TOT 29.10.1945

Martha Mende, b. 6.19.1914 in Schiffbek, d. on 10.29.1945 in the "Wagner von Jauregg Sanatorium and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna" Billstedter Mühlenweg 16 (Mühlenweg 16)

"The time for Martha Mende’s confirmation has arrived. I believe, given a well-ordered family environment, she can be released from the institution and could be an agreeable and useful family member. However, her parents circumstances are quite disagreeable. A divorced father has remarried. Under these conditions Martha would do well to stay in the institution where she will be an always helpful, congenial member of the staff.
[signed] A. Röhrig, Easter 1932"

This exit statement by Martha Mende’s longtime classroom teacher bears witness to the tragedy in the life of this young woman. Martha Mende was born on 19 June 1914 in Shiffbek and baptized there in the Evangelical-Lutheran church. Neglected by her alcoholic mother, she was slow to develope. A brother died four weeks after his birth. She learned to walk in her second year and to speak in her fourth. For a long time it went unnoticed that she was nearly deaf. When her father, the police sergeant Karl Mende, was called up to serve during the First World War, Martha was placed in a Hamburg orphanage. Karl Mende later separated from his first wife and then married Clara Strobel. Not only did her stepmother have no motherly love to offer, the neglected Martha was also supplanted, the marriage having produced a son.
Upon the finding that no further education at home was possible for the 10-year old and that she therefore ought to be institutionalized, Martha Mende, on 15 May 1924, was registered in the then named Alsterdorf Institution. Her "care-giver" that paid the costs of her upkeep was the "Province of Schleswig-Holstein Association for the Indigenous" located in Kiel. The institutionalization was preceded on 17 November 1923 by an examination conducted by the institution’s physician Clemenz. He recorded that Martha could scarcely speak, answered all questions with "Martha Mende," appeared feeble, pitiable, a bed-wetter, could not dress or undress herself, was socially maladjusted and unable to cope; she had not attended any school. Upon admittance she was judged capable of schooling. She was reserved and anxious, and shy when questioned, but she observed and participated in everything. By June she was declared to be rather independent for her age; on 5 August 1924 she was enrolled in primary school.

Martha Mende had to repeat the entry-level class. She lost 73 schooldays through illness.

Contrary to the hopes of her teacher, she could not catch up on the lessons she had missed during this period; moreover, she got ill again. Nevertheless, despite being hard of hearing, she completed her schooling with success and was released on 19 March 1932. During all these years she rarely received a visit from her stepmother and went just once on furlough to her parents at Easter in 1930. At her confirmation on the day after she left school, her father announced his refusal to take part because of his wife’s serious illness.

With the finishing of her schooling, the district director in Kiel saw no further need to to support Martha in Alsterdorf. On the basis of his decision, the District Committee of the Health, Welfare, and Youth Office of the Stormarn District on 8 June 1932 moved Martha Mende to the district children’s home in Lohbrügge. An employee brought her there. By reason of the acknowledgement of Martha‘s positive development, she was given over to her mother, thereby saving the expenditure of 25 RM for her upkeep; Clara Mende fetched her stepdaughter home.

Who it was that, eight years later on 15 May 1940, once again had her admitted to Alsterdorf has not been identified. Noted at her arrival were "the grossest defects in understanding and retentiveness," an incapacity to write her name, absent-mindedness and stubbornness; only with the roughest of reprimands could she be brought to do simple housework. Moreover, the institutionalization was necessary because her father abused her. With the justification that Martha Mende was mentally deficient and could not handle her own affairs, she was on 12 July 1940 declared incompetent and had Senate Counseor Käthe Petersen of the Social Administration appointed as her legal guardian.

Martha Mende remained unemployable, never able to regain the independence and abiliies she possessed when leaving the institution in 1932. Her physical powers declined; she became withdrawn. In consequence of "Operation Gomorrah," a series of bombing raids between 25 July and 3 August 1943, Karl Mende broke off contact with his daughter.

When, in August 1943, the female inhabitants of Alsterdorf were relocated, Martha Mende arrived with the transport of the 14th of the month in the "Wagner von Jauregg Sanatorium and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna." The receiving physician affirmed that she smiled somewhat when spoken to, however answered no questions and did not respond to instructions, merely moving her lips without making sounds. It took a few weeks for her to adjust; her needs were cared for in bed, where she occupied herself in isolation; she ate and slept well. Her condition changed little. In an appraisal sent to Käthe Petersen, the attending physician wrote: "The patient’s condition has not changed. She is calm, indifferent, needs help with the care of her bodily functions, has no contact with her surroundings. Continued institutional care is necessary."

On 29 September 1944 she was taken to a nursing home and on 3 November, disoriented, brought to an observation room (see note, p. 25). Weighing 106 lbs upon entering the home, she had lost 11 lbs by January 1945; in the next two months she lost a further 8½ pounds. Her gait was unsteady; she remained docile and contented, spending much time being cared for in bed, as when she first entered the home. On 7 May 1945, she was operated on for an abcess. The end of World War II had no positive effects on her welfare or location. She grew more frail, confused, and finally, from September, was designated as no longer movable. Perhaps, this finding explains why no one attempted to bring her back to Hamburg. By this point in time, her father knew neither where she was nor whether she was still alive, which can be deduced from a letter to the institution, dated 6 October 1946, in which he inquired about her condition. Martha Mende had died on 29 October 1945 at the age of 31 years. At her death, she weighed less than 65 lbs. She was buried in a common grave at the Vienna Central Cemetery on 3 November 1945.


Translated by Richard Levy

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Initiative Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Billstedt

Quellen: Ev. Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, V 153; Jenner, Meldebögen, in: Genkel/Wunder/Jenner (Hrsg.), Ebene, S. 169–178; Wunder, Abtransporte, in: Ebene, S. 181–188; ders., Exodus, ebd. S. 189–236; Ziegenbalg, Schiffbek