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Paula Hoppe, 1938
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Paula Franziska Hoppe * 1914

Peterstraße 35a (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
PAULA FRANZISKA
HOPPE
JG. 1914
EINGEWIESEN 1943
HEILANSTALT
AM STEINHOF WIEN
ERMORDET 28.5.1945

Paula Franziska Hoppe, born on 8 May 1914 in Hamburg, admitted on 9 July 1925 to what was then the "Alsterdorf Asylum” (Alsterdorfer Anstalten), transferred on 16 Aug. 1943 to the Vienna Municipal Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt, a "sanatorium and nursing home,” died on 28 May 1945

Peterstrasse 35a (Peterstrasse 42, back part of building no. 6)

Paula Franziska Hoppe was placed in an orphanage on 22 June 1914, shortly after her birth. Her mother, the maid Helene Marie Louise Hoppe (born on 28 June 1880), came from Hannover and was unemployed at the time of her pregnancy. The father of her child, the coal worker Gustav Gerstenkorn, did not marry her and at first, she could not feed Paula on her own. Up to the age of five Paula, had short stays at children’s homes in 1917 and 1919, together with her half-brother Herbert Franz Röhling, born in 1915. On 10 Apr. 1923, her mother married Herbert’s father, the worker Carl Friedrich Ernst Röhling (born on 20 Aug. 1868 in Lübeck).

In Nov. 1921, seven-year-old Paula was sent once again to an orphanage; her mother was expecting her third child in the Finkenau Women’s Hospital (sister Hildegard was born in Feb. 1922).

While Paula was attending the orphanage school in Langenhorn, her teacher there applied for her transfer to a "special school” on the grounds that "the child has an abnormal mental disposition.” She considered Paula incapable of taking part in "normal classes,” and so she came to the "special school” department of the orphanage, the "Landheim Besenhorst,” a rural children’s home near Geesthacht. Because Paula liked to play "dog” and would then call herself Bobby, her educator also argued in 1925 that accommodation in the "Alsterdorf Asylum” was appropriate for the "completely ineducable” eleven-year old. The medical examination was negative. The application of the educator was approved and Paula was admitted to the former Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten, today Protestant Alsterdorf Foundation [Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf]) on 9 July. Her half-brother Herbert followed her on 26 May 1926.

There Paula was considered "ready for school” ("schulfähig”) after all. Until Easter 1930, she attended the institutional school. Afterward, she helped in the "nursing department” and she was employed in the housekeeping section of the institution. Paula’s mother earned a living from trading postcards, and she lived in rather poor circumstances. She was very attached to her children and, despite the financial difficulties, regularly took them home "on vacation.” Various entries in Paula’s file revolved around unpunctual returns, suspension of leave, and alleged neglect during her leave. A letter to the Youth Welfare Office pointed out that the institutional management suspected that Helene Röhling went begging with Paula in the city center.

On 14 July 1933, the Nazis enacted the "Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases” ("Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses”). Paula Hoppe was transferred to the Eppendorf University Hospital for forced sterilization on 12 June 1935. Her mother protested resolutely: "In our opinion, you have no right to take such measures” and she demanded: "Should the operation have taken place anyway, we demand that my daughter be released from the institution immediately.” Helene Röhling, referred to as a "feebleminded person” ("Schwachsinnige”) after her letter of complaint, was deprived of custody on 14 Aug. 1933. According to a psychiatric report by the "expert,” who also happened to be the senior physician of the Alsterdorf Asylum, Gerhard Kreyenberg, a process of legal incapacitation was initiated, and Paula was placed under guardianship due to "imbecility” ("Geistesschwäche”). Her mother’s attempt in 1937 to "get Paula out” of the institution through an adoption by her stepfather also failed "in the child’s interest” because of the interventions of the guardian and the responsible authority: "The mother seems to have to support the family by her work. The father drinks and is constantly unemployed. If Paula were at home, a support supplement would have to be paid for her. That is probably what husband Röhling [her stepfather] wants to achieve.” All further efforts of her mother remained unsuccessful. Paula stayed in the Alsterdorf Asylum.

Her stepfather Carl Röhling died on 28 July 1943 during the heavy air raids on Hamburg at Peterstrasse 59. Paula herself and 227 women and girls were transferred to the Vienna Municipal Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt on 16 Aug. 1943. Her medical record there describes her in unusually positive terms. She was a "zealous, very industrious worker.” Already during her admission interview, the following was noted: "When you start talking about work, she becomes more lively and laughs merrily.” When asked why she came to an institution in the first place, she replied because she had not been at school. Perhaps Paula had recognized her chance of survival in the Viennese institution. Until 19 Jan. 1945, she was employed in "housekeeping.”

At the beginning of April, her file reveals that she had been transferred from the nursing ward to the infectious diseases ward in Pavilion 19. On 17 April, the file then read: "Icterus [jaundice] for about three weeks.” The following month: "weak, frail, complaining of pain.”

Paula Hoppe died on 28 May 1945; jaundice was noted as the cause of death.

Paula’s friend Anneliese P., with whom she came to Vienna together, survived the transfer. Asked about the situation in Vienna in an interview after the war, she reported, among other things: "[...] They all died of starvation. [...] We had too little to eat and it was freezing cold. They’d deliberately open the windows at night. And many became ill because of it and died. [...] We were very scared. For the whole department, they handed in a loaf of bread in the morning. We had to manage with that. We were so miserable ourselves, we could not do anything. [...] My best friend died, Paula. She shared everything with me. She even had a parcel from home. She gave all of its contents to us when she was so sick. Allegedly, she had jaundice.”

Paula’s mother Helene Röhling died on 12 Apr. 1949 in the Farmsen care home (Versorgungsheim Farmsen), her brother Herbert Franz Röhling on 25 Aug. 1992 in Hamburg.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Patientenakten der Alsterdorfer Anstalten, V 196 Paula Hoppe; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1201 u 280/1943; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 4299 u 63/1949; Wunder: Exodus, S. 235f.