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Renate Wilken * 1941

Marckmannstraße 135 (ehemalige Kinderklinik) (Hamburg-Mitte, Rothenburgsort)


RENATE WILKEN
GEB. 10.5.1941
ERMORDET 19.1.1942

further stumbling stones in Marckmannstraße 135 (ehemalige Kinderklinik):
Andreas Ahlemann, Rita Ahrens, Ursula Bade, Hermann Beekhuis, Ute Conrad, Helga Deede, Jürgen Dobbert, Anneliese Drost, Siegfried Findelkind, Rolf Förster, Volker Grimm, Antje Hinrichs, Lisa Huesmann, Gundula Johns, Peter Löding, Angela Lucassen, Elfriede Maaker, Renate Müller, Werner Nohr, Harald Noll, Agnes Petersen, Renate Pöhls, Gebhard Pribbernow, Hannelore Scholz, Doris Schreiber, Ilse Angelika Schultz, Dagmar Schulz, Magdalene Schütte, Gretel Schwieger, Brunhild Stobbe, Hans Tammling, Peter Timm, Heinz Weidenhausen, Horst Willhöft

Rothenburgsort Children's Hospital

In the former Rothenburgsort Children's Hospital, the National Socialists implemented their "euthanasia program" from the early 1940s.
Hildegard Thevs was able to research 33 names of murdered children.

A plaque on the building has commemorated the more than 50 murdered babies and children since 1999:

In this building
between 1941 and 1945
more than 50 handicapped children were killed.
An expert committee classified them
as "unworthy life" and assigned them
to be killed in specialized children's wards.
The Hamburg health administration
was involved in this.
Hamburg medical officers supervised
the admission and killing of the children.
Doctors of the children's hospital
carried them out.
None of those involved
was prosecuted for this.



Further information (in German) on the Internet at:

35 Stolpersteine für Rothenburgsort – Hamburger Abendblatt 10.10.2009

Stolpersteine für ermordete Kinder – ND 10.10.2009

Stolpersteine gegen das Vergessen – Pressestelle des Senats 09.10.2009

Die toten Kinder von Rothenburgsort – Nordelbien.de 09.10.2009

35 Stolpersteine verlegt – Hamburg 1 mit Video 09.10.2009


Wikipedia - Institut für Hygiene und Umwelt

Gedenken an mehr als 50 ermordete Kinder - Die Welt 10.11.1999

Euthanasie-Opfer der Nazis - Beitrag NDR Fernsehen 29.05.2010

Hitler und das "lebensunwerte Leben" - Andreas Schlebach NDR 24.08.2009
©


Renate Wilken, born on 10 May 1941 in Hamburg, murdered on 19 Jan. 1942

Renate Wilken, born in May 1941 in Barmbek-Süd, was born with Down’s syndrome. Her brother, five years older, is said to have stood in front of her bed shaking his head, according to family tradition.

Renate, only a few months old, was admitted to the Rothenburgsort Children’s Hospital and placed in Infant Ward 1. When she was admitted, she was said to have already suffered from pneumonia. On 7 Jan. 1942, Helene Sonnemann took over her treatment. Renate received a high-dose Phenobarbital (Luminal) injection from her on the evening of 18 Jan. 1942. The physician Ingeborg Wetzel assisted, because she "wanted to spare” the head nurse, Gertrud Menke, a pastor’s daughter. That night, Helene Sonnemann checked on the child again.

Renate Wilken died, eight months old, without having been baptized, on the evening of the following day.

Her mother notified the registry office of her death. "Mongolism, bronchial pneumonia” were recorded as the cause of death.

In 1948, the "spared” head nurse, Gertrud Menke, confessed to the investigating judge that she had participated in six to seven cases of "euthanasia” at her ward. Helene Sonnemann shifted responsibility for the killing of Renate Wilken onto a doctor from Infant Ward 2 by the name of Holter, who had died in the war. Her signature on the death certificate contradicts this version.


Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.


Stand: May 2019
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: StaH 213-12 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – NSG, 0017-001; 332-5 Standesämter, 1158-37/1942; 352-5 Gesundheitsbehörde – Todesbescheinigungen, StA 4b/37, 1942.

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