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Heinz Patjens * 1920

Kattrepel 10 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
HEINZ PATJENS
JG. 1920
EINGEWIESEN 1924
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
1941 HEILANSTALT
LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 1941
GAU-HEILANSTALT TIEGENHOF
ERMORDET 9.12.1941

Heinz Fritz Peter Patjens, born 15 Nov. 1920, institutionalized 11 June 1924 at the then Alsterdorf Asylum, moved in Nov. 1941 from Langenhorn Mental and Nursing Home to the "Reich santorium” Tiegenhof near Gnesen, killed 9 Dec. 1941

Kattrepel 10

Heinz Patjens was probably born in Hamburg on 15 Nov. 1920. His father Peter Heinrich Patjens set out to sea. His mother Anna Patjens, née Beckmann, gave birth to Heinz, the second of her three sons. A further child, Mariechen Erna Johanna (born 27 Nov. 1921) died of a lung infection at six months of age. The family lived in Hamburg’s Altstadt, on the third floor at Kattrepel 10.

When Heinz was three years old, he was diagnosed with "idiocy and epilepsy” and institutionalized on 11 June 1924 at the then Alsterdorf Asylum (today Alsterdorf Evangelical Foundation). He spent seventeen years of his life there until he was transferred to Langenhorn Mental and Nursing Home on 28 July 1941, allegedly to relieve the Alsterdorf Asylum. The asylum had previously filled out a registration form for Heinz and sent it to T4 headquarters in Berlin, at Tiergartenstraße 4 where "experts” decided who would be selected for deportation to one of the killing centers within the framework of their "euthanasia” program. The majority of patients under scrutiny had, like Heinz, already been institutionalized at various mental and nursing homes for many years (see Ella Lüders and Karl Jonny Westphal).

The only information we have on Heinz Patjens comes from a so-called hereditary file card with degrading, negative entries which will have significantly influenced how the registration form was filled out. Heinz may have no longer had epileptic seizures, but he was described as a "bedridden idiot” who "caused much trouble with his care”. Greater care requirements and lack of work were the reasons for including him in the "Operation T4” which encompassed the entire Reich. In Nov. 1941 Heinz was moved to the "regional care facility” Tiegenhof near Gnesen (today Gniezno) on one of three mass transports, his patient file probably was sent with him.

Polish patients at the Dziekanka Psychiatric Asylum, located in occupied Poland and originally founded in 1894, were first killed in gas vans before patients from the "old Reich” were killed by starvation rations and overdosing medication. Heinz Patjens was killed at Tiegenhof on 9 Dec. 1941 at the age of 21.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.


Stand: April 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: StaH 332-5 Standesämter 850 u 897/1922; Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Erbgesundheitskarte Heinz Patjens; Wunder: Abtransporte, S. 181–187; Rönn: Langenhorn, S. 70f.