Fischauergasse 100 (laid 2011)
Maria (Marie) Wolf
Deported to a killing institution in Pomerania
Maria Wolf, born 28 May 1910 in Wiener Neustadt, single, domestic worker / laborer.
Maria Wolf lived with her parents at Fischauergasse 100. She was admitted to the Mauer‑Öhling psychiatric institution, transferred to Gugging, and deported on 29 February 1944 to the Meseritz‑Obrawalde killing center, where she died on 7 March 1944.
On 25 November 1941, she had been transferred to the Mauer‑Öhling institution. No medical file for Maria Wolf has survived.
Between 9 February and 2 March 1943, on orders from the “euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, nearly 300 patients were transferred in six transports to the already overcrowded Gugging institution. Among them were ten people from Wiener Neustadt, including Maria Wolf. However, this institution also had to be cleared.
According to postwar court testimonies, Gauleiter Dr. Jury decided in early 1944 that Gugging had to be evacuated quickly because it was needed by the city of Vienna for hospital use. Only children could be transferred to other facilities (Steinhof). Berlin proposed a solution: Dr. Linden (Reich Ministry of the Interior) named Meseritz as a destination. The former director of Gugging, Josef Schicker, testified: Only two transports of about 50 patients each went to Meseritz. After the second transport, an inquiry came from Meseritz asking for the names and addresses of relatives of some patients who had died there. From this, I concluded that Meseritz was also a place of extermination.”
On 28 and 29 February 1944, two transports of 50 women each were deported to Pomerania (today Poland). Six women from Wiener Neustadt were on the second transport, including Maria Wolf.
Meseritz‑Obrawalde was the largest killing institution for the mentally disabled in the German Reich. Historian Ernst Klee estimates approximately 18,000 victims. According to witness testimonies, patients were forced into hard labor, and once they were exhausted, they were killed with medication.
Maria Wolf was reported dead in Wiener Neustadt on 7 March 1944 — only a few days after arrival.
Anton Blaha