Anna PENK was born in Maxglan (part of the city of Salzburg since 1935) on July 26, 1885. She was a daughter of the Catholic couple Antonia and Wenzel Penk. Her father was a gardener who died in 1903, and from then until her death in 1922 her mother lived in Salzburg with her older daughter Maria and her son-in-law Franz Flaschka on the third floor of 35 Getreidegasse.
Franz Flaschka was a judicial officer and he served as her guardian when she became incapacitated.
According to the Salzburg registration files, after 1917 the unmarried servant Anna Penk also lived with her older sister Maria and her brother-in-law. In March of 1939 Anna PENK became a patient in the Salzburg State Asylum and on April 16, 1941 the 55 year old Anna was deported to the Hartheim killing center near Linz and murdered.
As with all the other victims of the secret Nazi »T4«1 program to eliminate the permanently handicapped her death was not recorded in the police registration files of the city of Salzburg.
Her sister Maria Flaschka died in Salzburg in 1964.
Salzburg’s Anna Bertha Königsegg-Special School for Severely Handicapped Children is the sponsor for this Stumbling Block for Anna PENK.
1 The »T4« program was named after the Berlin address of its headquarters at 4 Tiergartenstraße.
Main persons responsible for the murders of the sick in Salzburg: Dr. Friedrich Rainer as Reichsstatthalter, Dr. Oskar Hausner as head of the Gaufürsorgeamt, Dr. Leo Wolfer as head of the Landesheilanstalt and Dr. Heinrich Wolfer as head of the hereditary biology department of the Landesheilanstalt (today Christian Doppler Clinic).
Quellen
- Salzburg City Archive
- Schloss Hartheim memorial and education center
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 02.07.2014 at Salzburg, Getreidegasse 35
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer