Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Ilse Fleischhauer * 1936

Saselheider Straße 20 (Wandsbek, Farmsen-Berne)

HIER WOHNTE
ILSE FLEISCHHAUER
JG. 1936
EINGEWIESEN 1942
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
´VERLEGT` 7.8.1943
´HEILANSTALT‘ EICHBERG
ERMORDET 23.9.1943

llse Fleischhauer, born on 14.12.1936 in Hamburg, admitted to the "Alsterdorf Asylum" ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten" now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 27.4.1942, "transferred" to the "Eichberg State Hospital" ("Landesheilanstalt Eichberg" on 7.8.1943, murdered there on 23.9.1943

Saselheider Straße 20 (Farmsen-Berne)

Ilse Fleischhauer was born on 14 December 1936 in Hamburg. Her parents were Tilly Caroline Amanda Fleischhauer, née Hoffmann, and the gardener Heinrich Philipp Fleischhauer. The couple had married on 19 October 1935 in Hamburg.

Translation: Ingo Wille

Ilse Fleischhauer was admitted to the former "Alsterdorf Asylum" ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten" now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 27 April 1942. Until then, she had lived with her parents at Saselheider Straße 20 in Farmsen-Berne. After being entered in the admission register of the "Alsterdorf Asylum", she was diagnosed with imbecility. (imbecility is a term no longer in use for moderate mental disability). Her medical records are no longer available.

Ilse Fleischhauer lived in Alsterdorf for 1 ¼ years. On 7 August 1943, she was transferred to the "Eichberg State Hospital" ("Landesheilanstalt Eichberg") near Wiesbaden.

We know the following about the background to this transfer:
During the heavy air raids on Hamburg in the summer of 1943 (Operation Gomorrah), the Alsterdorf Asylum at that time also suffered damage on the night of 29/30 July 1943 and then again on 3/4 August 1943. The director of the institution, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, asked the health authorities for permission to relocate 750 patients, allegedly to make room for the wounded and those affected by the bombing. In three transports between 7 and 16 August, a total of 468 girls and women, boys and men were transported to the "Eichberg State Hospital" near Wiesbaden, the "Kalmenhof Sanatorium" in Idstein in the Rheingau region, the "Mainkofen Sanatorium" near Passau and the "Am Steinhof State Hospital" in Vienna.

Ilse Fleischhauer was one of 76 boys, girls, women and men who were taken to the "Eichberg State Hospital" on 7 August 1943.

The "Eichberg State Hospital" had a "special children‘s ward". The term "special children‘s ward" was used in Nazi Germany as a euphemism for special psychiatric facilities in hospitals and sanatoriums that served the purpose of "child euthanasia", i.e., research on and killing of children and adolescents who were physically or mentally disabled.

Of the 28 children on the transport, twenty were immediately sent to the so-called children‘s ward. Among them was Ilse Fleischhauer. With the exception of one child whose date of death could not be determined, the children were murdered by 15 October 1943.

Ilse Fleischhauer died on 23 September 1943 in Eichberg, according to the entry in the death register, from "infirmity and pneumonia in idiocy".
It can be assumed with certainty that she did not die a natural death.
Ilse Fleischhauer became six years old.

Translation: Ingo Wille

Stand: October 2025
© Karin Gutjahr

Quellen: StaH 332-5 Standesämter 14736 Heiratsregister Nr. 746/1935 (Tilly Caroline Amanda Hoffmann/ Heinrich Philipp Fleischhauer). Harald Jenner, Michael Wunder, Hamburger Gedenkbuch Euthanasie – Die Toten 1939-1945, Hamburg 2017, S. 184. 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., 299 ff.