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Erika Frenzel * 1915

Stein-Hardenberg-Straße 190 (Wandsbek, Tonndorf)

HIER WOHNTE
ERIKA FRENZEL
JG. 1925
EINGEWIESEN 1943
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
‚VERLEGT‘ 16.8.1943
‚HEILANSTALT‘
AM STEINHOF / WIEN
ERMORDET 4.12.1944

Erika Charlotte Frenzel, born 24 May 1915 in Hamburg, admitted to the ‘Alsterdorf Asylum‘ (‘Alsterdorfer Anstalten‘, now ‘Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf‘) on 26 July 1943, deported 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 4 December 1944

Stein-Hardenberg-Straße 190 (Tonndorf)

Erika Charlotte Frenzel (callname Erika) was born on 24 May 1915 in Hamburg, Wagnerstraße 16. The Stumbling Stone commemorating her mentions 1925 as her year of birth. This is also stated in the admission book of the former ‘Alsterdorf Asylum‘ (‘Alsterdorfer Anstalten‘, now ‘Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf‘) and in her patient file. The correct year of birth, 1915, was only revealed by her birth certificate.

Erika's parents, the tailor Richard Frenzel and Elisabeth Agnes Frenzel, née Kahlert, both belonged to the Catholic denomination. Erika lived with them at Stein-Hardenberg-Straße 190 in Hamburg-Tonndorf when she was admitted to the former Alsterdorf Asylum.

The little information known about Erika Frenzel is taken from the admission book of the Alsterdorf Asylum at the time and the sparse entries in her patient file.

A letter from her mother dated 19 April 1943 to the Provincial- Curative and Nursing Home Neustadt/Holstein reveals that Erika Frenzel had been a patient at the asylum from August 1937 to May 1939.
In it, the mother asked for her daughter to be readmitted to a sanatorium and nursing home because, as she wrote, she was again suffering from tuberculosis and ‘a nervous condition’. The mother complained of constant trouble and annoyance with the neighbours because Erika cried a lot during the day and also at night. Her father, who had to work during the day, was therefore unable to rest. She herself was very exhausted and ‘with her nerves down’. It was no longer possible for her to look after her daughter. She had therefore made the difficult decision ‘to have her daughter taken in’.

The application for admission was unsuccessful, as the institution in Neustadt had since been converted into a general hospital and the psychiatric ward was only intended for admissions from the surrounding area. Elisabeth Frenzel therefore had to turn to an institution in Hamburg.
Erika Frenzel's mother now wrote to the Alsterdorf Asylum asking whether it would be possible to admit her daughter there.

After an internal exchange of correspondence between the Hamburg welfare authorities and the Alsterdorf Asylum, Erika Frenzel was finally admitted there on 26 July 1943. On the same day, the Alsterdorf institutions informed the welfare authorities that Erika Frenzel was suffering from ‘congenital feeblemindedness’.

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg at the end of July/beginning of August 1943 (‘Operation Gomorrah’), the Alsterdorf Asylum also suffered bomb damage. The head of the institution, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, took the opportunity, with the approval of the health authorities, to get rid of some of the residents who were considered ‘weak in labour, in need of care or particularly difficult’ by transporting them to other sanatoriums and nursing homes. On 16 August 1943, 228 women and girls from Alsterdorf and 72 girls and women from the Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home were ‘transferred’ on one of these transports 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. Erika Frenzel was among them.

The institution in Vienna was established on the outskirts of the city in 1907. After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, it became a centre for ‘Euthanasia’. People classified as ‘hereditarily ill’ were forcibly sterilised there. From 1940, around 3,200 of the 4,300 patients were transported to killing centres, the majority of whom were murdered by gas at Hartheim Castle. After the official end of the ‘Euthanasia’ murders in the killing centres, mass murders continued in previous intermediate institutions, including the Vienna institution itself: by overdosing on medication and failing to treat illness, but above all by depriving patients of food. Over 3,500 patients fell victim to starvation and infections.

Of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg, 257 died by the end of 1945, 196 of them from Alsterdorf.

Erika Frenzel died on 4 December 1944, presumably not of natural causes.

Stand: January 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, Sonderakte V 350 (Erika Frenzel) und Aufnahmebuch (Eintrag Nr. 8625). Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 283 ff., 331 ff.