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Auguste Schröder * 1881

Anckelmannstraße Ecke Borgfelder Allee (Hamburg-Mitte, Borgfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
AUGUSTE SCHRÖDER
JG. 1881
EINGEWIESEN 14.8.1943
’HEILANSTALT’
STEINHOF/WIEN
ERMORDET 7.4.1944

Auguste Schröder, born 2/17/1881 in Hamburg, murdered on 4/7/1944 at Wagner von Jauregg mental hospital in Vienna, Austria-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien"

Foot of Borgfelder Allee/Anckelmannstrasse (Borgfelderallee 5)

On November 15th, 1937, the head of the Sanitäts-Oberstaffel 4 beim Amt für Volksgesundheit ("People’s Health Agency”) in Altona wrote to the management of the Alsterdorfer Anstalten: "Auguste Schröder belongs to the clan of Frau W., née A., who is married to a member of the SS. For the race sheet of the SS race and clan agency I request you to inform us if the patient’s epilepsy is genuine or rather the result of a trauma.” Gerhard Kreyenberg, medical director of the institution, replied that after studying the records, he found contradictory entries that give the impression the patient’s epilepsy is genuine, i.e. endogenic, rather than traumatic. At that time, Auguste Schröder had been at the institution for a year and a half.

She was born in Hamburg on February 17th, 1881 as the second of eight children of the art restorer Heinrich Schröder and his wife Cäcilie, née Thormälen. Her eldest brother Max, a seaman, died of malaria in the Congo in 1909. Two younger brothers only lived for a few weeks. The other siblings reached adult age and were healthy, like their parents and grandparents. At the age of two, Auguste suffered a fracture of the skull. She entered elementary school at the regular age and later switched to a school for children with learning difficulties. When she was twelve, she suffered her first attack of epilepsy, in the daytime. In the following six years, she only had attacks during the daytime.

Auguste was sent to vocational school, where she learned housekeeping. From the age of eighteen, the attacks occurred every two to three weeks, mostly at night. In September 1904, at the age of 23, she suddenly started to fantasize, and three weeks later, she was admitted to the State Mental Hospital Friedrichsberg for the first time, diagnosed "epileptic mental disorder." She resisted admission, was given tranquilizers, which had no effect, and refused to eat. After two weeks, she was discharged to home as "improved." Her father Heinrich Schröder died of a heart attack on November 30th, 1914. Auguste Schröder lived with her mother at Borgfelder Allee 5 near Berliner Tor until her mother died on February 2nd, 1936.

Her Siblings A and R. Schröder attended to Auguste, who in the course of decades had become apathetic and inaccessible, and put her up at "Alsterdorf" at their own expense. The entry diagnosis was "epileptic dementia", and Auguste Schröder was rated as "requiring permanent committal to an institution." She felt "muddled in her head" and looked at the examining physician with "dull and empty eyes", which the doctor attributed to lacking intellectual and physical stimulation at home. Auguste Schröder was bothered by sounds, slept poorly in spite of sleeping pills and disturbed her environment by her uncontrolled behavior. She felt best lying in a deck chair outside in the sun. Thinking she would benefit from a change of climate, she was sent to a cure in the Harz Mountains. However, this treatment had no lasting effects; neither did water cures or medications. Her attacks now only occurred once a month, but her general condition varied between discontent and states of excitement.

When most patients were evacuated from Alsterdorf after the bombings of July and August 1943, Auguste Schröder was among the 228 women who left Alsterdorf on August 14th, 1943 on the transport to the Wagner von Jauregg Vienna Municipal Mental Hospital, where her dementia and restlessness were observed; she had only few attacks. In February 1944, she was transferred to the nursing ward. This, at least in the case of Auguste Schröder, was a misleading name. Instead of getting appropriate care, she was slowly and intentionally killed by malnutrition, inadequate medical care and general neglect. On her arrival, she had weighed 56 kg, in April 1944 only 45 kg. When her imminent death was diagnosed on April 6th, it was too late to send a "deterioration notice" to her family. Auguste Schröder died on April 7th, 1944, allegedly form pneumonia and heart insufficiency. She was buried in Vienna.


Translation by Peter Hubschmid 2018
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: January 2019
© Initiative Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Borgfelde

Quellen: Ev. Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, V 240; Jenner, Meldebögen, in: Wunder/Genkel/Jenner, Ebene, S. 69–178; Wunder, Abtransporte, in: ebd., S. 181–188; ders., Exodus, in: ebd. S. 189–236.