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Ilse Laartz
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Ilse Laartz * 1929

Amselstraße 5 (Hamburg-Nord, Barmbek-Süd)

HIER WOHNTE
ILSE LAARTZ
JG. 1929
EINGWIESEN 1932
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 16.8.1943
AM STEINHOF WIEN
ERMORDET 14.6.1944

Ilse Laartz, born on 10.4.1929 in Hamburg, admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten) on 9.6.1932, deported to the Wagner von Jauregg Nursing and Care Home in Vienna on 16.8.1943, died there on 14.6.1944

Amselstrasse 5 (Barmbek-South)

Ilse Laartz was born on 10. April 1929 in the State Institute for Obstetrics (Gynaecological Hospital Finkenau) at Finkenau 35 in the Hamburg district of Uhlenhorst as a seven-month child. She was the daughter of Heinrich Friedrich Karl Laartz who originated from Waren in Mecklenburg and his wife Henriette Meta Cäcilie (née Lebes) who was born in Altona.

The Laartz couple had six more children after Ilse.

Heinrich Laartz was a furrier by trade. In Hamburg, he lived with his fiancé Henriette Lebes in squalid conditions in a storage cellar. The couple married on 4. April 1929, 10 days before Ilse was born. They earned their living from the rag trade. Their earnings were not sufficient to provide them with enough to eat.

The living conditions of the now family of three remained precarious. A welfare worker noted a little later: "The couple lives with their infant in a storage room that is completely without ventilation. The baby cannot thrive in this air. The room is kept extremely clean and tidy, but Mrs. Laartz can hardly make a living from her husband’s low income”. Evidently Ilse’s mother was eager to improve the living conditions for her daughter. At the beginning of May 1929, she rented a room for 25 RM per month in which the family now lived.

When she was four weeks old, Ilse had to be admitted to the Children’s Hospital Rothenburgsort at 13. Mai 1929. She suffered from exanthema, digestive disorders and a tendency to bleed. Until the time of her release on 11. Dec 1929, she was said to have developed well. According to her file, she could raise her head, but could not yet sit. At this time, Ilse was described as being always cheerful. She was said to have good appetite and she increased in weight. Overall, she was a healthy baby at the time of her discharge from hospital.

But soon afterwards, at the beginning of February 1930, Ilse Laartz was admitted to the Barmbek hospital at the behest of the Welfare Authorities because of a feverish cold and rickets. She was discharged 2 1⁄2 months later in an improved condition, but had to be readmitted shortly afterwards until mid-September. Between hospital stays, Ilse Laartz was now accommodated in a home.

During this period, the family’s second child, Gerda Eliese Henriette, was born on 11. July 1930.

The economic circumstances of the family continued to be extremely difficult. The rag trade no longer provided Heinrich Laartz with an income. The family now lived in a very damp basement flat at Amselstrasse 3/5 in Barmbek-South.

Ilse Laartz was described as being very tender. At the age of 1 ¾, she still could not walk. In April 1931 she was admitted for medical treatment to the private Baby Nursery, Hochallee 1, and from there transferred to Eppendorf Hospital for a month with a suspected case of measles.

A little later, on 14. July 1931, Ilse’s mother gave birth to her third child, the boy Hinrich, at the Finkenau clinic. The welfare worker judged the condition of the three children as "only modestly cared for and physically very backward”. She described Ilse, who was now two years old, as retarded and mentally handicapped. After Ilse’s mother had asked for her child to be admitted to an institution, Ilse was admitted to the then Alsterdorf Asylum (today the Protestant Foundation Alsterdorf) on 9. June 1932.

There Ilse came across as friendly. In various daily reports, it was noted inter alia "she can walk. When she is tired, she sits down on the floor [...] in bed she always pulls the cover over her face […] she likes it when people spend time with her and is generally speaking very lively […] is happy, laughs and plays when she is in bed”. In the course of time, Ilse suffered frequently from diarrhea and often vomited. She came down with gastric enteritis, gastric bleeding, pneumonia and skin rash. Time and again, however, her general condition improved following the relevant treatment. But her mental development remained very impaired.

In October 1942, she was judged to be a "complete fosterling”.

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg at the end of July/beginning of August 1943 (Operation Gomorrha), the Alsterdorf Asylum also sustained bomb damage. After consulting the Health Authorities, the management of the asylum took advantage of the opportunity to transfer to other homes a part of the people living in Alsterdorf who were considered "to have only limited labour potential, to require a lot of care or to be particularly difficult”. On 16. August 1943, a transport with 228 women and girls from Alsterdorf as well as 72 girls and women from the Nursing and Care Home Langenhorn left for the "Wagner von Jauregg Nursing and Care Home of the city of Vienna”. Among them was 14-years-old Ilse Laartz.

In Vienna, Ilse was admitted to Pavilion 19, kept in custody and put under observation. She was repeatedly assessed as "being dependant on nursing care and being disoriented”. At the beginning of 1944 she was said to have refused to eat. Her development was summed up in one word: "deteriorating”.

On 14. June 1944, Ilse Laartz allegedly died of pulmonary tuberculosis.

196 of the 228 girls and women from Alsterdorf died up to the end of 1945. The Wagner von Jauregg Nursing and Care Home in Vienna was an institution which was part of the decentralised "Euthanasia”. The mass murder in the Viennese institution was carried out systematically: by drug overdoses, not treating illness but above all by starvation. In the death certificate Ilse’s body was described as highly emaciated. Allegedly, she still weighed 20 kg at the end. In Hamburg, her last recorded weight was 27 kg.

Ilse Laartz died at the age of only 15.

Translator: Steve Robinson

Stand: February 2021
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbücher Hamburg; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 14896 Nr. 809/1907 Geburtsregistereintrag Henriette Meta Cäcilie Lebes, 13209 Nr. 240/1929 Heiratsregistereintrag Henriette Meta Cäcilie Lebes/Heinrich Friedrich Karl Laartz, 1083 Nr. 1404/1938 Sterberegistereintrag Henriette Meta Cäcilie Laartz; Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, V 186, Sonderakte Ilse Laartz.