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Else Moll
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Else Moll * 1912

Goebenstraße 46 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
ELSE MOLL
JG. 1912
EINGEWIESEN 1925
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
‚VERLEGT‘ 16.8.1943
‚HEILANSTALT‘
AM STEINHOF / WIEN
ERMORDET 15.11.1944

Else Adele Karoline Moll, born 28 March 1912 in Hamburg, admitted to the ‘Alsterdorf Asylum‘ (‘Alsterdorfer Anstalten‘, now ‘Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf‘) on 14 February 1925, deported to Vienna on 16 August 1943 to the ‘Wagner von Jauregg – Curative and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna’ (‘Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien’, also known as the institution ‘Am Steinhof’) in Vienna, died there on 15 November 1944

Goebenstraße 46, Eimsbüttel

Else Adele Karoline Moll (callname Else) was born on 28 March 1912 as a ‘seven-month-old’ in Hamburg, Eimsbütteler Chaussee 68.

Her parents, the seamstress Ida Christina Caroline Moll, née Rixen, born on 17 August 1879 in Altona, and her husband, the waiter Johann Heinrich Moll, born on 3 August 1868 in Mönchehof near Kassel, had married in Hamburg on 3 April 1909.

The twins Anna Maria and Gertrud Henny Berta were born before Else on 5 November 1909. Anna Maria died on 7 November. Gertrud Henny Berta later attended a secondary school and worked as an accountant.

Ida Moll separated from her husband in 1917 after being physically threatened by him. She lived with Else from 1917 with her mother, Else's grandmother Maria Friedrike Margaretha Rixen, at Goebenstraße 46. We do not know whether Else's sister Gertrud also lived in Goebenstraße or stayed with their father.

The marriage of Ida and Johann Heinrich Moll ended in divorce in 1936. The divorced husband is said to have been ‘suffering from nerves’.

In the early years, Else Moll was described as almost always happy and cheerful. Her mother reported that Else was able to walk at the age of one and a quarter and speak at the age of one and a half. From the age of four, she observed seizures in the child for the first time in the course of pneumonia, which then recurred approximately every four weeks and more frequently. The girl was almost always under medical treatment. As an infant she had chickenpox, at the age of three she had whooping cough, at the age of four pneumonia, at the age of six she suffered from fever for a long time due to bronchial gland tuberculosis, among other things, and was very weak. Else was unable to attend school because of the seizures. She received one hour of home schooling three times a week, but this had to be cancelled due to the frequency of her seizures. However, she had learnt to read and write.

Else Moll's ongoing medical care led to her admission to the ‘Alsterdorf Asylum‘ (‘Alsterdorfer Anstalten‘, now ‘Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf‘) on 14 February 1925 due to her frequent seizures. Although Else's mother did not want to place her in an institution, she finally agreed because she had to go to work and ‘it would be too difficult for her’ to look after the child. In Alsterdorf, the seizures continued, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness. Else was considered easily irritable, but also affectionate and friendly.

From March 1925, Else Moll attended the institutional school, but had to repeatedly interrupt her school attendance due to illness. In November 1925, Else Moll was dismissed from school because she was almost always in a ‘dream-like state’ due to her very frequent epileptic seizures. In addition, apart from reading, she had a great confusion of concepts in all other subjects. She could correctly solve simple maths problems in the number range up to ten, but could not distinguish between right and left. According to the reports, she was very irritable and quarrelsome towards her fellow patients. The seizures led to falls with nosebleeds and skin abrasions.

At the beginning of 1931, ‘constant silly behaviour led to segregation’. It was reported that Else Moll had tried to annoy a carer with mocking and shameless speeches. In an argument with a fellow patient, she smashed a window pane, another time she hit a fellow patient on the head with a brush. Due to ‘unruly behaviour’ towards carers and aggression towards fellow patients, Else Moll was often isolated from her fellow patients and taken to the guard room until 1940. There she sometimes had to endure several ‘packs’ and in one case her movements were additionally restricted by a protective jacket. (Guard rooms were set up in psychiatric institutions in the 1910s as an advanced method of treatment. Restless patients were isolated in them and treated with permanent baths, sleep and fever cures. They were introduced in the Alsterdorf institutions at the end of the 1920s. Over the course of the 1930s, they evolved into coercive institutions for the immobilisation of patients using medication, restraints and other measures. In the ‘wet pack’, patients were wrapped in nettle cloths and doused with ice-cold water. Their movements were largely restricted with a ‘protective jacket’, colloquially known as a ‘straitjacket’. Those affected often saw this as a punishment).

On 18 September 1933, Else Moll's father wrote a detailed letter to the director of the Alsterdorf Asylum, Pastor Friedrich Lensch, in which he complained about the treatment of his daughter. He wrote:
‘Dear Pastor!
I apologise most graciously if I have to make use of your valuable person in this letter, it has long been my decision to come to see you about my child Else Moll, and in the last few weeks in particular many distressing moments have come to the attention of both me and my wife during our visits, when punishments are imposed on a sick child who is not a prisoner in the institution, and moreover, the causes of all these punishments are not only to be found solely in my child's naughtiness, but also in incitement by people in the Hoher Wimpel ward. My child was physically assaulted by Emma Bischoff, her face was so scratched that she had to wear a bandage for 14 days, these causes are not only due to my child, I think that my child is also being subjected to quite a lot of torture, perhaps because she is visited on Wednesdays and Sundays, so the poor creature has had to suffer a lot recently and I am not surprised, when one visiting day about three weeks ago she said, dear papa, I'm going to take my own life because I can't stand this treatment any longer, now she's been in the guardroom again for some time and I heard that they've locked her up in a cell, only liquid food the whole time and a ban on eating anything we've brought with us when we visit, these are all so-called institutional punishment orders. Where is the real meaning of caring for a seriously ill child who still has a clear mind, except for the moments when she is overcome with melancholy and her convulsions take effect? Pastor, I beg you, as a believing Christian, in the despairing sight of my dear child, it is terrible when I cry out the words before my God and Father, Oh take my dear child to you before I have to watch this agony any longer. Pastor, I sincerely ask you not to interpret my letter as if I wanted to ask for favours for my child, no, it is only the deeply tormented heart of a father who has been separated from his dear children for 17 years, is so alone, and is brought together every Sunday by the visits of my sick child, I ask you to soothe this severe wound of my soul by giving your love and attention to the child of my heart, because I am convinced that the child will only become even sicker in your mind with this treatment. By the way, I must remark that she has asked her mother not to tell me anything about the confinements; I must only learn this from other children. The thought of the child being locked up in a cell and seized by convulsions at night without help and assistance, I think I must say, from a human, rational point of view, it is outrageous for a father to think about it without saying a word, it would be a grave sin if I left my child unprotected and did not stand up for her, with this appeal to you, Pastor. May God grant that my heartfelt request will be a blessing for my dear child and I sign it with the greatest respect and devotion.
J. H. Moll’

The reply ten days later was as follows:
‘Dear Mr Moll !
Of course I fully understand that the welfare of your unfortunate daughter is very important to you. We are also all aware here that Else's often unpleasant behaviour is largely due to her illness and pathological disposition and that she should not be held fully responsible for it. You are therefore also mistaken when you describe the measures necessary to protect her and her fellow patients as punishments that are not appropriate for a seriously ill girl and cannot be combined with truly understanding and loving care.
The doctors were only doing their duty when they temporarily removed a patient with such severe epileptic changes of character from her daily environment. Else's pathological nature manifests itself in extreme irritability; she kicks and screams at the slightest opportunity. She looks for reasons to nag and scold and to pick fights with those around her; she irritates others with malicious remarks until it comes to violence. Of course, the other girls are no angels either. Else was also isolated on 7 September because she could no longer be kept in the ward due to constant arguments with her fellow patients and was also insolent towards the nurse.
We fully understand that the fate of your daughter is very close to your heart as a father and ask you to have confidence in us, as we certainly sympathise with you.
With German greetings
The management’

Under 27 March 1940, the patient file contains the entry ‘Receives punishment’. According to the report, Else Moll had been very agitated, had smashed crockery, thrown objects around, tried to tear clothes and had become violent. She was then taken to the isolation room in the guard room and only released from there on 30 March.

When the frequency of seizures increased further in the spring of 1941, the staff now administered Glyboral instead of Luminal and then Luminal again. After a brief improvement, the seizures became more frequent again. Finally, as before, she was described as lethargic, sleepy and listless when doing housework.

At the beginning of 1943, Gertrud Moll visited her sister. She summarised her experience of the visit in a letter to carer Sister Martha Schroeder:
‘When I visited my sister today, I was greeted in the hallway by carer Sister Erna, who told me that Else had been very upset and had hit one of the children, whereupon she had given Else a few slaps. The nurse told me: ‘Else must know that she is not allowed to hit other children and how far she is allowed to go. Else also wets herself very often. If she does it when she has cramps, I don't mind, but if she's too lazy to go to the toilet, I haven't given her anything to drink. I assumed that Else had been given a few slaps on a particularly suitable backside or on her fingers. That's why I kept quiet. But if I had known about the extent of the corporal punishment, I wouldn't have gone over it like that. We know that it's very, very difficult to deal with sick people like that, and I told the nurse that. But at the end of the day, this state of agitation is also pathological and you can't blame Else for her behaviour. - When I saw my sister today, I was shocked at the sight of her because her left eye was completely bloodshot. When I asked Else, who seemed calm again, she told me that her carer Sister had hit her in the eye like that. How easy it would have been for Else to lose her eye if she had been beaten like that. Now I have a question. The carer Sister told me that Else should know how far she should go. If I demand this insight from a sick person, how much more must I expect this insight from a healthy person, who must know all the more how far he can punish a sick child. - My mother and I would like to ask that Else be shown to the doctor, as she is complaining of pain, and we would also ask that we ensure that chastisements to this extent do not occur again; in any case, we strongly forbid blows to the head. - Furthermore, my sister told me that she wet herself during a fit and then very often doesn't get anything to drink. We would ask you to clarify this matter as well. [...]
Heil Hitler
Sincerely yours. Gertrud Moll’

Gertrud Moll continued to be very concerned about her sister. On 21 August 1943, probably under the impression of the heavy air raids on Hamburg at the end of July/beginning of August, she asked the director of the Alsterdorf Asylum, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, whether her sister Else Moll was still alive. The family had lost everything and were in Gau Bayreuth.

The Alsterdorf Asylum also suffered bomb damage. After consulting with the health authorities, the institution management took the opportunity to transfer some of the residents who were considered to be ‘hard to work, in need of care or particularly difficult’ to other sanatoriums and nursing homes. On 16 August 1943, a transport of 228 women and girls from Alsterdorf and 72 girls and women from the Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home departed for the ‘Wagner von Jauregg – Curative and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna’ (‘Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien’, also known as the institution ‘Am Steinhof’) in Vienna. Else Moll was among them.

Her father and sister Gertrud, who were now living in Krummennaab in the Upper Palatinate as a result of the destruction in Hamburg, only learnt of Else Moll's transfer to the Vienna institution in September through a message from Vienna. Allegedly, Else had survived the long journey well and was calm and content. She was very happy to receive a message from her father and sister. Likewise at the beginning of January 1944.

On 18 March 1944, the Vienna institution filled out the ‘Registration Form I’, which the psychiatric institutions had to use to report important data on the inmates to the ‘Euthanasia’ centre in Berlin, Tiergartenstraße 4, during the first euthanasia phase from 1939 to 1941. The information on these individual registration forms provided the basis for deciding whether people with mental disabilities or mental illnesses were to be killed in one of the six gas murder centres of the German Reich. Else Moll was diagnosed with ‘insanity with epilepsy’ and also stated that she was unfit for work. The medical records provide no information about the purpose of this registration form long after the centralised control of the murder of the sick, whether it was sent to Berlin or whether it had any influence on her further fate.

In the few reports about Else Moll in her Vienna medical file, the entry ‘In bed rest, orderly, poorly orientated, calm’ is repeated in 1943 and 1944. And: ‘frequent seizures’. From the beginning of May to 9 June 1944, Else Moll had to endure six electric shock treatments. Her mother, who now lived in Hamburg-Schnelsen, was informed in July 1944 that ‘an attempt was now being made to cure patient Moll in order to improve her convulsions. However, the success was not complete, although the seizures have subsided somewhat and she herself has become more balanced.’

The improvements did not last long. Else Moll was transferred to the nursing section of the institution on 2 October 1944. At the end of October, prolonged seizures and weakness were noted. One month later she was labelled ‘decaying’. On 11 November, Else Moll was transferred to ‘Infection Pavilion 19’, which was a place of induced death. The following day she was told: ‘Weak, decrepit, decubitus sacralis – very extensive and deep.’ (Pressure ulcer in the coccyx, buttock area due to lack of care).

Else Moll died on 15 November 1944, allegedly from ‘marasmus and psychosis, epilepsy and pneumonia’. (Marasmus is a serious illness that develops as a result of chronic malnutrition).

Else Moll's weight, which had been 62kg when she arrived in Vienna, had dropped to 47kg.

During the first phase of Nazi ‘euthanasia’ from October 1939 to August 1941, the ‘Wagner von Jauregg – Curative and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna’ had been an intermediate institution for the Hartheim killing centre near Linz. After the official end of the murders in the killing centres, mass murders continued in previous intermediate institutions, including the Vienna institution itself: through overdoses of medication and non-treatment of illness, but above all through food deprivation. By the end of 1945, 257 of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg had died, 196 of them from Alsterdorf.

Stand: January 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg 1920/1925, StaH 113749 Geburtsregister Nr. 2565/1909 (Gertrud Henny Berta Moll), 113749 Geburtsregister Nr. 2566/1909 (Anna Maria Moll), 115778 Geburtsregister Nr. 766/1912 (Else Adele Moll), 6207 Geburtsregister Nr. 2285/1879, 3133 Heiratsregister Nr. 147/1909 (Johann Heinrich Moll/Ida Christiana Caroline Rixen), 8000 Sterberegister Nr. 872/1909 (Anna Maria Moll); Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, Sonderakte V 147 (Else Moll). Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 35, 283 ff.