Julia Peterson
* 1867

Julie Peterson, née Grandjean, born on 27.12.1867 in Hamburg, admitted to the “Sanatorium and Nursing Home Hamburg-Langenhorn” (“Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn“) on 11.8.1943, transferred to Vienna on 16.8.1943 to the “Wagner von Jauregg Mental Hospital of the City of Vienna“ (also known as the institution “Am Steinhof”), where she died on 18.8.1943.

Grindelallee 20

Agnes Caroline Julie (callname Julie) Peterson, née Grandjean, was born on 27 December 1867 in Hamburg. At the age of 75, she was admitted to the “Sanatorium and Nursing Home Langenhorn” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn") in northern Hamburg on 11 August 1943, due to a “state of confusion” and was transported to “Wagner von Jauregg Mental Hospital of the City of Vienna“ (also known as institution “Am Steinhof”) in Vienna.
She was part of a transport of 300 women and girls, including 72 girls and women from the “Sanatorium and Nursing Home Langenhorn” and 228 girls and women from the former “Alsterdorf Asylum“ (“Alsterdorfer Anstalten“) (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), which reached its destination on 17 August.

Julie Peterson died on the evening of 18 August 1943, one day after her arrival in Vienna, at the age of 75, allegedly of old age.

She was buried in Vienna's Central Cemetery.

Julie Peterson came from a Hamburg merchant family and belonged to the Reformed Church. In 1889, she married John Ludwig Friedrich Peterson, born on 22 June 1861 in Hamburg, who later took over the “Orthopedic Institute” located on Esplanade Street.

The marriage produced at least six children, three of whom died in infancy: Erik Adolph, born on7 June 1890, Erika Marie Johanna, born on 20 August 1891, died on 10 September 1891, Hans, born on 29 September 1892, Kurt, born on 24 June 1894, died on 12 July 1894, Maria, born on 8 July 1896, died on 16 July 1896 and Karl-Heinz, born on 9 June 1903.

We know nothing else about Julie Peterson's life. The sparse contents of her Langenhorn patient file provide no clues as to the cause of her “state of confusion”. It is possible that, like many others, she was affected by the aerial bombing raids of 1943. These raids damaged and destroyed buildings in Grindelallee, causing profound psychological stress and disorders in many people.

When she was admitted to Vienna, Julie Peterson weighed only 36 kg. She was quiet and very weak. This suggests that the stresses of transport may have exceeded her strength and led to her premature death.

During the first phase of the Nazi „Euthanasia“ program from October 1939 to August 1941, the institution in Vienna served as a transit facility for the Hartheim killing center near Linz. After the official end of the murders in the killing centers, mass killings continued in the former transit centers, including the Vienna institution itself: through overdose of medication and non-treatment of illnesses, but above all through deprivation of food. Most of the other girls and women transferred with Julie Peterson did not survive their stay in Vienna either. By the end of 1945, 257 of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg had lost their lives.

On the stumbling stone commemorating Julie Peterson, her first name was written as “Julia,” as it appears in Hamburg's “Euthanasia Memorial Book.” However, she was recorded as “Julie” in the birth register.