Niederländergasse 7 – now Grazer Straße 95
(moved 2010, renewed 2011 and 2015)
Juliane Taul
A “deaf-mute” young woman is killed
Juliane Taul, born on November 15, 1921, in Wiener Neustadt, single, deaf.
Admitted to the Mauer-Öhling sanatorium in June 1940, transported to Hartheim on May 12, 1941, and murdered the same day.
Juliane Taul was born deaf in 1921. The family lived at Pognergasse No. 14. In September 1928, Juliane moved to the Lower Austria state school for the deaf in Schneeberggasse No. 21 for two years. After the institution moved to St. Pölten, she was again registered with her family in Pognergasse. Her father died in 1937, and her mother moved with the children Juliane, Anna, and Karl to Niederländergasse No. 7. In 1939, the mother moved out with the two younger siblings, and Juliane Taul remained alone registered in the flat. Entry on Juliane’s registration form: “deaf-mute, unable to work” and on June 1, 1940, deregistration to “Mauer-Öhling Sanatorium.” The immediate reason for admission is unknown.
The reasons, however, were obvious. The increasing delusion since the 19th century of a healthy, capable, Aryan race that should be superior to all other peoples and eventually triumph over them became increasingly significant. Under Hitler, the previously outlandish theories were put into gruesome practice – even up to forced sterilization and the “annihilation of life unworthy of living.” The so-called Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases from July 25, 1933 (in Austria effective January 1, 1940), regulated who was “hereditarily ill,” was not allowed to marry, and could not bear or father children. It states:
“Hereditary illness within the meaning of this law is the following:”
[…]
6. Hereditary blindness
7. Hereditary deafness
8. Severe hereditary physical malformation.”
The “euthanasia” begun in 1940 was just the continuation and intensification of these measures in order to reach the “noble” goal of a healthy race more quickly.
The admission of the 19-year-old girl to Mauer-Öhling is listed as June 3, 1940. It took place shortly before a visit by a high-ranking medical commission in the institution. At that time, the data of all patients were sent to Berlin, where decisions were made about who would be murdered and who would be allowed to live. Juliane Taul was classified as “unworthy of life” because of her deafness. There are no medical records or other documents about the stay in the “sanatorium.” They were probably destroyed.
On May 12, 1941, the girl was deported in a transport with 28 men and 41 other women “to an institution not named to the management.” In fact, the gray buses took the patients to the Hartheim killing facility, where they were murdered with poison gas the same day.
The former house, where Juliane Taul lived, was later torn down for the construction of Grazer Straße and stood at the place of today’s tax office.
Anton Blaha