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Arno Pump * 1934

Im Tale 37 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

HIER WOHNTE
ARNO PUMP
JG. 1934
EINGEWIESEN 1939
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 7.8.1943
HEILANSTALT EICHBERG
ERMORDET 15.10.1943

Arno Pump, born 28.6.1934 in Hamburg, admitted to the then Alsterdorfer Anstalten (today: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 10.8.1939, transferred on 7.8.1943 to the Landesheilanstalt Eichberg in Rheingau, died there on 15.10.1943

Im Tale 37 (Eppendorf)

Arno Pump was the son of Hermann Henri Pump, a construction worker, born on August 24, 1901 in Hamburg, and his wife Helene Gertrud, née Schneider, born on December 8, 1904 in Hamburg. The couple had married on July 26, 1924.

Arno Pump's birth proceeded with complications. He was the second youngest of nine children. The two firstborns (twins) had died of pneumonia at 15 months. According to the Hamburg social authorities, the mother took good care of the children, and the father was absent from work at times.

Arno Pump learned to walk at the age of two and a half, and to speak at the age of four. In 1939, when he was admitted to what was then the Alsterdorfer Anstalten (today: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), the staff described him as small and weak. Due to a pelvic anomaly, his left leg was shortened so that he had to drag it when walking.

His stay at the Alsterdorf institutions was initially planned as temporary, to allow his mother a fortnight's respite, but then became permanent. On admission, five-year-old Arno Pump made a friendly impression, as noted in his patient file, allowed himself to be examined willingly and the staff were able to communicate with him well. However, it judged his speech to be difficult to understand. It also diagnosed him as mentally retarded.

In 1941 and 1942, notes on Arno Pump stated that he was able to eat alone, had a good appetite, and provided small assistance. He was bright and generally lively, showed interest in everything, liked to play with his fellow patients, was agreeable and affectionate, but was dependent on others for personal hygiene.

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg in July/August 1943 ("Operation Gomorrha"), the Alsterdorf institutions also suffered bomb damage. The director of the institution and SA member, Pastor Friedrich Lensch, took the opportunity, after consulting with the health authorities, to transfer some of the residents who were considered "weak in labor, in need of care or particularly difficult" to other sanatoriums and nursing homes. With three transports between August 7 and 16, 1943, a total of 468 girls and women, boys and men were transferred to the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Mainkofen" near Passau, to the "Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien" in Vienna, and in a linked transport to the "Landesheilanstalt Eichberg" near Wiesbaden and the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Kalmenhof" in Idstein in the Rheingau.

128 girls and women, boys and men were assigned to the first linked transport on August 7, 1943. 76 boys, girls, women and men were destined for the "Landesheilanstalt Eichberg" and 52 boys for the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Kalmenhof" in Idstein. Arno Pump was among those taken to the "Eichberg State Sanatorium" on August 7, 1943. The last entry in his Alsterdorf medical record is dated August 6, 1943, and reads, "Transferred because the Alsterdorf institutions are destroyed."

The then "Landesheilanstalt Eichberg" had served as an intermediate facility for the Hadamar killing center in the "Aktion-T4" (camouflage designation for the Nazi "euthanasia" program, so named after the headquarters of the Berlin euthanasia center at Tiergartenstraße 4). After the official halt of the "euthanasia program" in August 1941, murder continued in Eichberg (as in the other intermediate institutions), through systematic malnutrition and overdosed medication combined with nursing neglect.

Twenty of the children from Alsterdorf were immediately transferred to the "specialized children's ward" (Kinderfachabteilung) that had existed there since 1941. The term "children's specialist department" was used in the National Socialist German Reich as a euphemism for special psychiatric facilities in hospitals as well as in sanatoriums and nursing homes that served the purpose of "child euthanasia," i.e., the research on and killing of children and adolescents who had been classified as severely physically or mentally handicapped. By October 1943, 30 of the boys and men transferred from Hamburg to Eichberg had died.

Arno Pump lived in Eichberg for only nine weeks. He died there on October 15, 1943.

During the National Socialist era, a total of 630 handicapped children, women and men were transported from the former Alsterdorf institutions to intermediate institutions or directly to "euthanasia" killing centers. Of these people, 511 were killed - according to the state of knowledge in 2016.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: February 2022
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13501 Geburtsregister Nr. 1155/1901 Hermann Henri Pump, 6629 Heiratsregister Nr. 429/1920 Hermann Henri Pump/Helene Gertrud Schneider; Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv Sonderakte Nr. V 24 Arno Pump; Standesamt Erbach Rheingau Nr. 659/1943 Sterberegistereintrag Arno Pump; 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.