Therese HAHN was born in Salzburg on November 19, 1878 and was baptised in the St. Blasius Catholic parish. She was the third of the four children of Therese and Simon Hahn.
Simon came from Eger in Bohemia (Cheb in Czech) and was a hops trader for breweries. He died in Salzburg in 1891 and his widow did the same in 1922.
Their daughter Therese was taken into care at the St. Josef’s Home run by the Sisters of the Good Shepard in Salzburg’s Nonntal neighborhood. At some undocumented time later Therese was taken in as a pateint in the Salzburg State Asylum.
We do know that in January 1938, shortly before the Nazis took over Austria, Therese HAHN was transfered from Salzburg to the Sisters of Mercy’s Schloss Schernberg nursing home in Schwarzach (in the Salzburg mountain district of Pongau).
Anna Bertha Königsegg, the regional head of the Sisters of Mercy, protested strongly and with great courage against the Nazis’ »Euthanasia« program that was murdering tens of thousands of handicapped patients across the Third Reich.
When she was arrested by the Gestapo on April 16, 1941 the Sisters of Mercy patients lost their main defender. Thanks to the efforts of some of her co-workers 17 patients were spirited away and hidden, thereby saving their lives.
The 61 year old Therese HAHN was one of the 115 patients who were deported from Schernberg to the Hartheim killing center near Linz on April 21, 1941 where they were all murdered.
As with all of the victims of the Nazis’ secret »T4«1 murder program her death was not entered in the police registration files.
Her three married sisters had moved away from Salzburg long before.
1 It was called the »T4« program because its central headquarters were located at Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin.
Those mainly 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 the Christian Doppler Clinic).
Sources
- Salzburg City Archives
- Schloss Hartheim Learning and Memorial Center
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 25.09.2018 at Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstraße 14
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer