There are dark sides to the history of German social welfare organisations. Sometimes terrible suffering was inflicted on people in need of help. Bethel cannot absolve itself of this either. Terrible things happened during the National Socialist era, such as the forced sterilisations and the transfer of Jewish residents as part of the "euthanasia" programme. Today, there is a living culture of remembrance, supported and inspired by the historical reappraisal of our own past.
The memorial plaque at the Zion Church in Bethel and the memorial cross at the church in Eckardtsheim have been in place since 1989. Both commemorate the victims of the Second World War and bear the following inscription: "Remember those who lived among us and, just because they were different, were humiliated, murdered and buried between 1933 and 1945. Lord God, have mercy".
Facts
Where: Memorial plaque at the Zion Church
When: Inaugurated on September 1,1989
In memory of:
the victims of the forced sterilisations
the transfers in 1941
the Jewish victims of the "T4" special action
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Sterilisations were carried out in Bethel between 1933 and 1945. A stele on Bethelplatz is dedicated to the victims of these "racial hygiene measures". Designed by the Bielefeld artist Gabriele Undine Meyer, the memorial was inaugurated with a ceremony in June 2000. The TRIALOG working group - consisting of people with experience of psychiatry, relatives and employees - developed the memorial text together with the Bethel board. The text was copied by hand a total of 1.176 times and displayed in a glass case for everyone to see - that was how many victims were known at the time.
In 2019, an explanatory plaque was installed in the immediate vicinity of the stele to supplement the status of further research into the forced sterilisations in Bethel. Following further historical research, 1.665 cases are now known in which women and men were sterilised in Bethel in accordance with the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring".
Facts
Where: Stele on Bethelplatz
When: Inaugurated on June 18, 2000; completed in 2019
In memory of:
Men, women and young people who were forcibly sterilised in Bethel
Links
In 2000, Bethel joined the initiative to compensate forced labourers. Among other things, Bethel accepted its historical responsibility by supporting former forced labourers from Belarus with a monthly sum of money for two years - on behalf of the people who performed forced labour in Bethel during the Second World War and whose fate could hardly be traced. A place of remembrance was created on the initiative of the General Staff Council. Nicolaj Monaschko, who himself was a forced labourer in Bethel as a teenager, spoke at the dedication of the memorial stone on 31 August 2005.
Facts
Where: Memorial stone in front of the place of the building "Dankort" in Bethel
When: Dedicated on August 31, 2005
Commemoration of:
Forced labourers during the Second World War in Bethel
In 2013 and 2019, pupils from Bethel grammar school analysed the history and fate of the Jewish patients at Bethel using the files in the main archive and accompanied the laying of the Stumbling Stones. The Stumbling Stones commemorate the seven people of Jewish faith or origin who were transferred from Bethel to the provincial sanatorium in Wunstorf as part of a special "Aktion T4" operation and murdered a few days later, on September 27, 1940, in the Brandenburg/Havel killing centre.
Facts:
Where: Stumbling stone in front of the last place of residence in Bethel and Eckardtsheim
When: Inaugurated on May 2, 2013 and February 11, 2019
In memory of:
Hermann Federmann, Margot Hermine Reuter, Kurt Simon, Dorothea Ahrndt, Dr Heinrich Jansen, Olga Laubheim, Reinhard Beyth
Links
People with Jewish roots were also deported from the Hoffnungstaler Foundation Lobetal, which is now part of the Bethel network of foundations, during the Nazi era. On April 13, 1942, a group of ten residents from Lobetal were picked up and taken to the Warsaw ghetto. Most of them were murdered a few weeks later in Treblinka. Some died in the ghetto. This documentary tells the story of Dr Hermann Feder, one of the deportees.
General information