Helene Grell
* 1911

Helene Grell, born on 28.8.1911 in Groß Flottbek (now Hamburg), transferred from the Neustadt/Holstein State Mental Hospital to the Alsterdorf Asylum (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 12.10.1926, readmitted to the Neustadt State Mental Hospital on 14.1.1930, readmitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum on 6.2.1939, transferred to the Hamburg-Langenhorn Mental and Nursing Home on 18.12.1939, transferred to the Provincial Mental and Nursing Hospital in Lüneburg on 18.12.1939, transferred back to Langenhorn on 20.3.1941, transferred to the State Mental and Nursing Hospital in Königslutter am Elm, where she died on 26.8.1941

Luruper Hauptstraße 20

Helene Olga Gesa Grell (known as Helene) was born on 28 August 1911 in Groß Flottbek. She was the fourth of five children of Christian Theodor Eduard Grell, born on 16 January 1877 in Ottensen, and his wife Gesa Wilhelmine Auguste, née Sohrt, born on 17 June 1879 in Bahrenfeld, who was working as a maid at the time of their marriage. The couple had married on 14 January 1905 in Altona and settled shortly afterwards at Schenefelderchaussee 20 (now Luruper Hauptstraße) in Lurup. The marriage certificate listed Theodor Grell as a labourer. The address books listed him as a coachman.
(Bahrenfeld, Groß Flottbek, and Ottensen were districts of the then Prussian town of Altona. The rural municipality of Lurup in Pinneberg was incorporated into Altona in 1927. Altona became part of Hamburg in 1938.)

Anna Margareta Luise Grell, the first child of Mr and Mrs Grell, was born on 17 June 1906 in Altona. She was followed on 7 November 1908 by her twin brothers, Paul Christian Heinrich and Theodor Willy Ferdinand. Paul Christian Heinrich died four days after his birth on 12 November 1908; Theodor Willy Ferdinand died on 23 December 1923 at the age of just fifteen at Altona Municipal Hospital. According to the death register entry, he had already been working as a labourer. Helene, born in 1911, was followed in 1913 by Gertrud Grell, whose date of birth is unknown to us.

We know nothing about Helene Grell’s childhood. Her long-term stays in institutions, which had begun before 1921, were attributed to a diagnosis of ‘encephalitis as a sequela of Parkinsonism’. Encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) was a widespread disease at the beginning of the 20th century, often accompanied by Parkinson’s syndrome.

Helene Grell lived at what was then known as the Alsterdorf Asylum (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) from 12 October 1921 to 9 February 1926. According to her Alsterdorf patient file, she had previously been a patient at what was then the Provincial Sanatorium and Nursing Home in Neustadt/Holstein. No specific dates are recorded. From 14 January 1930, she was once again at the institution in Neustadt, this time until 6 February 1939. She was subsequently transferred back to the Alsterdorf Asylum. From there, she was transferred on 18 December 1939 to the Hamburg-Langenhorn Mental and Nursing Home, on 20 March 1941 to the Lüneburg State Mental and Nursing Home, and on 18 July 1941 back to Langenhorn. Finally, on 29 July 1941, she was transported in a group transport of 30 women to the State Sanatorium and Nursing Home in Königslutter near Braunschweig.

It is unclear where Helene Grell was between 1926 and early 1930.

Her medical records noted that the onset of her illness was unknown. Her symptoms included rigidity, excessive salivation and dementia; she was bedridden and unable to engage in any activities.

Her mother and her sister Margarethe visited her regularly.

At the end of 1940, the Langenhorn Mental Hospital completed “Registration Form I” for Helene Grell. During the first “Euthanasia” phase, from 1939 to August 1941, all institutions were required to use this form to report key details about their patients to the central office at Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin. The information on these registration forms formed the basis for deciding whether people with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses should be killed in one of the six gas chambers. In addition to her diagnosis, it was noted regarding Helene Grell that she received regular visits from her sister and mother, was bedridden and unable to engage in any form of work.

Despite the reference to visits from relatives, which would otherwise occasionally act as an obstacle to selection, Helene Grell was transported on 29 July 1941 in a convoy of 30 women to Königslutter am Elm and admitted to the State Mental and Nursing Hospital there. This institution served as one of the transit centres for the Bernburg State Sanatorium and Nursing Home, one of the six extermination centres where people with disabilities or mental illnesses were murdered by gassing. The women transported from Langenhorn to Königslutter on 29 July 1941 were also intended to be taken to Bernburg.

However, growing public discontent and the public protests of Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen and other church dignitaries led to the gas murder programme being halted on 24 August 1941. The killing of the sick, however, continued to be carried out by doctors and nursing staff in the existing intermediate institutions – now through drug overdoses, systematic starvation and neglect.

With the end of the gassing programme, the women from Langenhorn were no longer transferred to Bernburg. However, as the Hamburg health authorities regarded the transfer to Königslutter as final, a return to Hamburg was out of the question. The patients remained in Königslutter.

Almost half of them died there within the first six months, and a total of 29 within three years. Only one patient survived.

Helene Grell died on 26 August 1941 at the age of 30. The cause of death recorded in the civil registry entry was “complications following meningitis (encephalitis)”.

By contrast, all the medical death certificates for the women who died in the first six months listed “schizophrenia” as the cause of death.