Size 3 Junior Dresses

10 - Like a moth to light fliegt ...

Erna had already begun in the spring of 1942, to the monotony of work to refuse in the yard. She was one morning not got time grumbled about their fate loudly with the mother, threatened and abused. But Mama Anna had then received "under control".

Well, in October 1942 but went off again - with Erna. This grueling monotony of agricultural work and the resistant strain and the same old rut had used up their forces now completely.

addition, there was this latent fear of missing the life or concrete as suddenly as it was two years ago, the neighbor Ida G. victim of a bomb attack to be And the bombing itself -. As incisive trauma in the immediate vicinity of threatening - was not yet processed and returned in dreams.
The sirens wailed, in the meantime more and more air raids - and in the nearby factories Raba then shot the flak. At night, when British bombers flew attack or Bielefeld Gütersloh and Paderborn, then that fear crept up, then took Erna to sleep. She tried to chuckle sometimes unmotivated or the warble of the popular hits from the radio "I know it will happen once a miracle - and then - become a thousand fairy tales come true ..." or a satirical song: "Rejoice the Life grandmother is shaved with a scythe ... . And then broke up many times this strain and tension and the fear. But still could not. And above all, it seemed really weird to the outside - her inner terror unmotivated by giggling and warble to listen ... Her laughter was often crying ...
Erna could and would not, she longed for inner peace, according to the cheerfulness and serenity of yesteryear, when she danced to the accordion-playing brother William with his brother, Ewald - and for inner peace - with their environment and with himself She longed for themselves, for security and love. What actually was happening in

Erna, we do not know. She said later in the document quoted verbatim statements for forced sterilization, they have often "seen their comrades" - a daydream - that had come and gone again. She slept poorly - and was dead tired when the morning began to work. She woke at night in a cold sweat and trembling - and listened to the sirens of the next attack. It opposed the wake in the morning - and the instructions of the mother she could not be followed. You probably even once waved around with a knife, as Mama Anna urging them "Teng minor birtken NEN to maken" .

She giggled briefly, took her "dear mama" in the arm - and started to cry, to equal out to giggle again. She suddenly asked if her brother Ewald was still alive. She could not perform more work processes continuously to an end, but she interrupted several times - or breaking it off completely.

likely to operate in Senne II competent NSI district nurse (people's "welfare "The " Brown sister - as in the vernacular was called - the "social hot spots" of the community Senne II visited already and from "preventive" reasons, and so with mother Anna because of Erna's "ailments" in the spring of 1942 in conversation ...) Erna was the fall of 1942 an invitation to a medical examination by a neurologist in Brackwede, who with her sister Lina ACTING as companion.

The doctor has her office then after a few questions and a physical examination with reflex tests, a certificate / registration form / reports etc. given, as recommended in the in repeated complaints and psychological discomfort, the provincial hospital Gütersloh seek to be there to undergo a thorough examination and treatment. In the institution Gütersloh previously was a sister of Erna's because of the "arousal" after a conflict with a work colleague were treated as outpatients in the short term.

Erna regarded this now seemingly all of a sudden a way out of their inner turmoil. They could thus get rid of the monotonous and grueling work in the Muhlenkamp rest thoroughly - and can be "thorough check" - "and people come " - perhaps to indulge their thoughts undisturbed can say - perhaps a "more challenging" environment - Probably almost as recreational cure ", so to make their need for a more colorful exterior and interior life may result.

In any case, they showed that referral to a police patrol that was parked at the road side of Paderborn road.

And the police officer - faced with the admission letter - joined briefly with the local NSI sister - and Erna Kronshage was therefore but also somehow "voluntary" - but in the correct official German time " as dangerous to the patient through police training available of Prov. sanatorium Gütersloh fed . "

a "public danger" was briefed by the police noted at the time because one mentally ill person with uncontrolled actions by whatever the person and / or the " All public health risk " saw *).

*) Further note on terminology: ... "w therefore would lead on 24.10.1942 as dangerous to the patient through police training available to the Prov.Heilanstalt fed Gütersloh ." (Possibly also enlarge with "Link"):

The instruction as "Dangerous to the patient" - was the common term for a police training institution. In addition to "common-dangerous" offense, there was just too the fact that "mental patients" were admitted for their own protection or to protect the public from the police because she otherwise a "danger to the community" (= a "common danger" ) could represent.
You could say "not normal" was increasingly equated with "socially harmful". And "not normal" so it was (but probably temporary!) "Slackness" that felt so Erna K. itself also But " normal "meant now not equal to" schizophrenic "/" hereditary "- but in her case, it was noted it was in practice." normality "yes measured primarily by how well or poorly someone in his role fits. For the rural population and for the Nazi social standards in everyday life, which were particularly observed by the NSA and was checked, was the ability to work a very important criterion, namely the ability to perform timely work, the age, gender, and social position correspond. "work ability" was also later in the selection criteria for the liquidation of the "euthanasia" the absolute scale. was also important that someone could move "normally" in their social environment. The neighborhood, the social environment, now Nazi-influenced, decided on its own criteria for whether someone was normal or not, and if not, to what degree . Since medical concepts of Nazi psychiatry are important insofar as it uses for its own interests of the village society and the goals of the party or the NSI was There are studies that show exactly that. In asylums patients were included that one for "public danger" was people with whom we deal was not in the village, were therefore as a public danger classified. Unwanted marginalized people, perhaps in socially prominent families, they were very easy, even with moderate misconduct by the NSA People's Welfare and the police called a public danger. Another way to instruct someone "officially" did not exist.

This peculiar behavior Erna's almost "how to fly the moth into the light", so almost voluntarily but reluctantly and with resistance and independently to the "destruction" race, the ambiguity in what they do, yes we already described in the basic moral dilemma resonates have seen (I will prefer to go - but will I be yes) - Was probably the ambivalent Nazi zeitgeist - the inner sense of confusion: the war outside was also a war within. They struggled as the hamster in the wheel - and got no further ... - They saw no future for themselves - and the " Studierten ," the doctors " modern science" in all the new ruling " modern spirit " you could certainly offer a perspective that have a future .. .


Kronshage Erna was born on 24.10.1942 at Gütersloh in the provincial hospital.

Photos: NSV-Brooch of the Brown Sisters "- police station in 1940 - Postcard: administrative building of the provincial hospital Gütersloh, about 1940 , - women's departments (all photos private) - Anstalt bed around 1940