Maria Schild

This is the story of Maria Schild, a victim of the Nazi euthanasia programme. Her murder was planned and managed from desks in the Landhaus.

Maria Schild grew up in Wörgl with her four brothers and sisters. After finishing school, she was apprenticed as a sales assistant. Her employer described her as very reliable and hard-working. At the age of 21, she developed the first symptoms of a mental disorder.

She was referred several times to the hospital in Hall. There was no place in the National Socialist world for the mentally ill or physically handicapped. They were seen as an unnecessary cost factor. People’s value was defined by their ability to work. Those who could not lost their right to exist.

The murderous consequences of the Nazi ideology were not long in coming. Maria Schild was transferred to the Hartheim Euthanasia Centre on 10 December 1940 and murdered there. She was in the first of four groups to be sent from the Hall hospital to an extermination centre.

In the Landhaus, meanwhile, Nazi officials were discussing the cost of transportation to Hartheim and where the related cost items should be booked. Several departments were involved in the organisation and management of the murders, with each department responsible for just one aspect.

The story of Maria’s fate long remained unknown. An art project created by Franz Wassermann entitled “Temporary Monument. Processes of Remembrance” was a major step towards in-depth study of the Nazi euthanasia programme. Today, a memorial and information site in the grounds of the successor hospital in Hall commemorates the victims – and reminds us of what we humans are capable of.