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Liselotte Paetow * 1923

Wackerhagen 17 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

HIER WOHNTE
LISELOTTE PAETOW
JG. 1923
EINGEWIESEN 1926
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
‚VERLEGT‘ 28.7.1941
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
TIEGENHOF
ERMORDET 7.2.1942

Liselotte Paetow, born on 11.12.1923 in Reinstorf (Neukloster-Warin district, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), admitted to the former "Alsterdorf Asylum" ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten" now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 14.6.1935, transferred to the "Sanatorium and Nursing Home Langenhorn” on 28.7.1941, transported on 27.11.1941 to the "Gau-Heilanstalt Tiegenhof" (polish: Dziekanka) near Gnesen (Polish: Gniezno), died there on 7.2.1942

Wackerhagen 17

Liselotte Frieda Minna (callname Liselotte) Paetow was almost 18 years old when she was transported on 27 November 1941, together with 31 women and 37 men, from the "Sanatorium and Nursing Home Langenhorn” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn") in northern Hamburg to the "Gau-Heilanstalt Tiegenhof" (polish: Dziekanka) near Gnesen (Polish: Gniezno). Almost all of the people in this transport had previously been residents of the former "Alsterdorf Asylum" ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten" today the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) and had been transferred to Langenhorn on 28 July 1941, including Liselotte Paetow.

The Dziekanka psychiatric institution near Gniezno had been occupied by the German Wehrmacht in October 1939 and given the name "Gau-Heilanstalt Tiegenhof".

It was built between 1891 and 1894, just under two and a half kilometres from Tiegen in the administrative district of Posen. By 1919, it had beds for around 600 patients. It was one of the psychiatric institutions with the lowest mortality rates worldwide.

After the occupation of Poland by the German Wehrmacht, the institution was included in the Nazis' T4 "Euthanasia" programme. By the summer/autumn of 1941, the Germans had murdered the Polish patients in several campaigns. When the Hamburg women arrived in Tiegenhof, they too met this fate. They were killed by systematic starvation, overdose of medication and neglect.
The accommodation in Tiegenhof contained separate killing rooms where the defenceless and exhausted victims were injected with lethal substances, given enemas or administered dissolved drugs in their soup.

Liselotte Paetow died there on 7 February 1942. It can be assumed with certainty that she was murdered.

The young woman was born on 11 December 1923 in Reinstorf (Amt Neukloster-Warin) in Mecklenburg. Her parents, the labourer Hermann Paetow and his wife Erna, née Schwedt, settled in a rear building on Wackerhagen Street in the Hamm district of Hamburg at the end of the 1920s.

We know little about the family, about Liselotte Paetow's childhood and youth, and hardly anything about the disability that led to her admission to the "Alsterdorf Asylum" on 14 June 1935 (not 1926, as stated on the Stolperstein). Liselotte's mother is said to have been deceased at that time. The little information that is still available is taken from a "hereditary health index card" or "family tree" about Liselotte Paetow.

In Hamburg, the "Hamburg Health Passport Archive" was established in 1934 for the purpose of conducting a "hereditary biological inventory" of the population. For this purpose, the "Alsterdorf Asylum" also created index cards (referred to as ‘hereditary health index cards’ or "family trees") on which family trees and brief descriptions of the residents were recorded in consistently derogatory and condemnatory language.

The rather meaningless "hereditary health index card" for Liselotte Paetow has been preserved. It reads: "Diagnosis: idiocy with epilepsy. From the course of the illness: The patient is indirect, anxious and restless, screams and rages. Has no school knowledge whatsoever. Needs help with personal hygiene, is alone. Echolalia. Wets herself at night. Tears up a lot of stuff."
("Idiocy" is a term no longer in use for a severe form of intellectual disability. Echolalia refers to the compulsive imitation and repetition of words, sentences or sounds heard ("parroting")).

A stumbling stone at Wackerhagen 17 in Hamburg-Hamm commemorates Liselotte Paetow.

Stand: October 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv, Erbgesundheitskarteikarte Liselotte Paetow, Aufnahmebuch Eintrag Nr. 6982. Zdzisław Jaroszewski (Hrsg.), Die Ermordung der Geisteskranken in Polen 1939-1945, Warschau 1993, S. 86-102. Enno Schwanke, Die Landesheil- und Pflegeanstalt Tiegenhof – Die nationalsozialistische Euthanasie in Polen während des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Ffm. 2025. Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 269-281.