Sina Paratschenko
* 1944

Sina Paratschenko, born on 21.12.1944 in Hamburg, died on 3.5.1945

Essener Street 54 (formerly camp Tannenkoppel, Weg 4, also called "Tarpenbek = Forced labor camp of the armaments industry in Hamburg Langenhorn)

Sina Paratschenko was born in Hamburg on December 21, 1944. Her mother Maria Paratschenko, born on June 20, 1919 in Annenko, was of Roman Catholic faith and single. Deported from Ukraine, she had to perform forced labor in Hamburg-Langenhorn for Hanseatische Kettenwerk GmbH (HAK) and/or Deutsche Meßapparate GmbH (Messap). She was housed in the Tannenkoppel camp, Weg 4.

On the day of the birth of her child, Maria Paratschenko was hospitalized in the Women’s clinic Finkenau, Hamburg-Uhlenhorst. Eight days after the delivery, on December 29, 1944, she returned to the Tannenkoppel camp with her daughter Sina. Sina had to spend the short time of her life in this forced labor camp. The nutritional and living conditions there were completely inadequate for her.

On February 1, 1945, she was admitted to the Eppendorf University Hospital with pneumonia. According to the hospital list, she would have been released to the Tannenkoppel camp at the end of the war on May 17, 1945. However, this was not the case.

On February 10, 1945, she was admitted from the University Hospital to the Hamburg special (Ausweichkrankenhaus) hospital Wintermoor with the diagnosis "dyspepsia and pneunomia" (indigestion and pneumonia). Almost three months later, on May 3, 1945, the day of Hamburg's capitulation and surrender of the Hanseatic city to the British Army, she died in "Ehrhorn, Kreis Soltau, Krankenhaus-Sonderanlagen Aktion Brandt Anlage Wintermoor" at 6:30 am.

The cause of death given by Dr. Dieckmann is "bronchopneumonia" (pneumonia) "whooping cough".

The death certificate with the imprint "Aktion Brandt" indicates that Sina was killed by deliberate neglect, by starvation or by an overdose of medication, as was the case in May 1944 with the infants from camp Tannenkoppel Serge Duvert and Genja Woronez.

Sina lived 4 months, 1 week and 5 days old.

She was buried in the Waldfriedhof Wintermoor, grave location W88.

In the "Aktion Brandt" program, led by Karl Brandt, General Commissar for Sanitary and Health Services, and named after him, patients were transferred from sanatoriums and nursing homes to other nursing homes and alternative hospitals starting in 1943.

The official reason for this was to free up bed space for the increasing number of war casualties. In many cases, they were killed there by deliberate neglect, starvation or an overdose of medication. Aktion Brandt" is therefore referred to as "regionalized euthanasia" or as "decentralized euthanasia." It followed in the footsteps of the "T 4 Action," the targeted "euthanasia" murder of psychiatric patients, which was stopped due to the resistance of of church representatives of both denominations, of parts of the population and of some institutions had been officially stopped in August 1941. Karl Brandt was sentenced to death in 1947 at the Nuremberg "Doctors' Trial" as one of the main perpetrators of Nazi "euthanasia" crimes and executed the following year.

The hospital Wintermoor was established in 1942/43 as a Hamburg with forced laborers, Soviet prisoners of war and Italian military internees. Italian military internees, under the direction of the "Organisation Todt" (OT), a special paramilitary organization of the Nazi state that carried out construction projects important to the war effort. After the accidental death of its founder and organizer Fritz Todt in February 1942, the leadership was transferred to Albert Speer, Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions. Eleven Soviet prisoners of war out of about 100 prisoners of war from the StaLag Sandbostel subcamp, who were housed in a wooden barrack in Ehrhorn and died during the construction of the Wintermoor hospital, are known by name.

Polish forced laborers worked in the hospital's kitchen and as cleaners.

Translation by Beate Meyer