Lina

In 1924, Lina Bernhardt is born in Schwäbisch Hall, the fourth of ten children. The family circumstances are very difficult and the parents are overburdened. Soon the Youth Welfare Office gets involved and Lina is taken to the children's home in Lichtenstern with three of her siblings. Due to a previous illness, the fun-loving girl is slightly mentally and physically handicapped. Without her siblings, she has to move to the Stetten Sanatorium and Care Home in 1931. With her cheerful and sunny nature, she quickly makes friends there - she enjoys singing songs to the nursing staff, telling imaginative stories and recounting her dreams, which are often about family members. In September 1940, the first "gray buses" start to appear in front of the Stetten institution. Numerous residents are transported to extermination camps as part of the "Action T4" genocide program. Lina's path takes her first to Winnenden and then to Weinsberg. At the age of 17, she is murdered at the killing center in Hadamar. In this book, Ruth Dunkelmann and Brigitte Wege recall the story of their aunt. Using letters and reports from Lina's medical records, they reveal the touching fate of an exceptional girl.

From left to right: Ruth Alice Dunkelmann, Elsa Dunkelmann née Bernhardt, Brigitte Wege What really happened back then? Where was Lina taken? Could I still find out something about her after 70 years? These are the questions I asked myself at the beginning of my search for my unknown aunt. My mother and her many siblings grew up under difficult circumstances. Some of them only got to know each other as adults. Only Lina seemed to have vanished completely. For my mother, my sister and me, in searching for her it was as if we were at last gradually getting to know her, and above all coming to love her. Ruth Alice Dunkelmann im Juli 2019 --- You can contact the authors at the following email address Brigittedunkelmann@yahoo.de