Hildegard MAYER, neé Springer, was born in Salzburg on February 26, 1902 and was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. She was the first of the two children of the elementary school teacher Oskar Springer and his wife Antonia. The family lived at 30 Lasserstraße.
Hildegard attended the Mozarteum Conservatory and at age 20 she married a business clerk. On May 23, 1924 she gave birth to her son Helmut in Salzburg. About ten years later, on September 18, 1934 Hildegard MAYER was admitted to the Salzburg State Asylum.
Shortly after that she was declared legally incompetent. In 1940, after the Nazis had taken over Austria, her marriage was dissolved and her former husband remarried.
Hildegard MAYER was one of the 68 women and men who were deported from the Salzburg State Asylum to the Hartheim Castle extermination center near Linz on April 16, 1941 – where they were all murdered.
As with all of the victims of the Nazis secret »T4«1 extermination campaign the death of the 39 year old Hildegard MAYER was not recorded in the Salzburg police registration files.
Her brother Oskar and her son Helmut both survived the years of terror.
1 It was called the »T4« program because its Berlin headquarters were located at Tiergartenstraße 4.
Primarily responsible for the murderous program in Salzburg were: Dr. Friedrich Rainer as Governor, Dr. Oskar Hausner as leader of the regional health office, Dr. Leo Wolfer as director of the State Asylum (now called the Christian-Doppler-Clinic), and Dr. Heinrich Wolfer as head of the hereditary disease section of the State Asylum.
Sources
- War Crimes Records of the U.S. Judge Advocate Division Headquarters (The National Archives Washington DC)
- Parish Registers of the Salzburg Archdiocese
- Police registration files of the city of Salzburg
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 24.09.2019 at Salzburg, Lasserstraße 30
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer