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Karl Jonny Westphal * 1921

Rothesoodstraße ggü. Nr. 8 (vormals Nr. 21) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
KARL JONNY WESTPHAL
JG. 1921
EINGEWIESEN 1924
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 1941
GAU-HEILANSTALT
TIEGENHOF
ERMORDET 12.2.1942

Karl Jonny Westphal, b. 4.18.1921 in Hamburg, committed to the then Alsterdorf Institute on 7.3.1924, transferred in November 1941 to the Tiegenhof "Regional Mental Hospital," near Gnesen; death on 2.12.1942

Rothesoodstraße, immediately adjacent to House Number 1 (Rothesoodstraße 21)

Karl Jonny Westphal was 20 years old when, because of his mental retardation, he was murdered. He was born out of wedlock in Hamburg on 18 April 1921. The names of his parents have not been recorded. His father was supposedly a painter and day laborer. His mother later married a third time.

On 3 July 1924, at the age of three, Karl was committed to the former Alsterdorf Institute (today, the Alsterdorf Evangelical Foundation). It can be determined from the "hereditary index card” filled out for him when he was 20 years old, that his diagnosis was "idiocy,” and that because he was "incurably ill,” he presented great difficulties for the caregivers of the Institute. This negative evaluation was probably decisive in the filling out of the questionnaire for "T-4 headquarters,” so-named for the seat of the Berlin officials at Tiergartenstrasse 4. It was there that "consultants” decided, on the basis of the questionnaires, who ought to be transported to one of the killing centers. The most affected had been, like Karl Westphal, institutionalized for many years (see entries for Ella Lüders and Heinz Patjens).

On 28 July 1941, initiated within the framework of the "Euthanasia Action T-4,” he was transferred to the Langenhorn Psychiatric Hospital, so as to "unburden” the Alsterdorf Institute. The "Public Utility Transport Company" (Gekrat), fetched the patients in busses with covered windows and brought them to intermediate centers or killing facilities.

In November 1941, Karl Westphal came on a transport, comprised of three others, to the "Regional Institute” at Tiegenhof near Gnesen, in the Warthegau. This was originally the Dziekanka Psychiatric Institute, founded in 1894, and was located in the region of Poland occupied by the German Armed Forces. The most part they resulted from the administering of medication overdoses in specially equipped killing chambers. But killing was also the result of starvation and neglect.

Karl Westphal died on 12 February 1942 at Tiegenhof.

Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: June 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: Archiv der Evangelischen Stiftung Alsterdorf, Erbgesundheitskarte des Patienten Karl Jonny Westphal; Wunder: Abtransporte, in Wunder/Genkel/Jenner: schiefen Ebene, S. 181; Rönn: Langenhorn im Krieg, in: Böhme/Lohalm (Hrsg.): Wege in den Tod, S. 75.