Memorial plaque and 'stumbling stones' at the former Rothenburgsort Children’s Hospital

The plaque on the former Rothenburgsort Children’s Hospital (now the Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine) was unveiled on 9 November 1999 and commemorates the murder of more than 50 children with disabilities between 1941 and 1945. As part of the Nazis’ ‘euthanasia’ programme, an evaluation committee had categorised the children as ‘unworthy of life’ and admitted them to so-called ‘special children’s wards’, where they were killed. The Hamburg Health Administration, Hamburg public health officers and doctors from the hospital were all involved.

In addition to the plaque, 35 Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) have been laid in 2009 in memory of the murdered boys and girls as well as Dr Carl Stamm, who was the head physician at the children’s hospital until 1933. He took his own life before he could be deported. Also 88 babys and infants of forced labourers were murdered in 1944 and 1945 in the Rothenburgsort Children's Hospital and the "Olgaheim". ("Olgaheim" was a temporary clinic in Wohldorf where some children were born). The children died because of underfeeding and neglect.

For years, the initiative “Memorial to the Former Rothenburgsort Children’s Hospital” has campaigned for a dignified monument to the murdered children. After the initial attempt to establish a memorial on the site of today’s Hygiene Institute failed due to being unable to secure the property owner’s approval, temporary projects from students remembered the history of the children in Rothenburgsort. In cooperation with the artist Wolfgang Wiedey, a new memorial to the former children’s hospital was inaugurated on September 24^th, 2024. It lists the names and ages of the murdered children and shows the silhouette of a doctor or nurse next to the bed of a child.

Today, it is known between 1940 and 1945 at least 127 infants and toddlers were deemed “unworthy for life” and were murdered at the former children’s hospital as a part of the National Socialists’ euthanasia program.