Emmy R. (1883 – 1944)

Actress Emmy R. was a victim of the decentralized form of »euthanasia«. She originally came from Hamburg. Her father, a chartered accountant, left his family early on in her life. After attending a girls secondary school, Emmy R. went to England, where she passed language exams in English and French. She then attended a teacher training college as well as the drama school of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. In the years that followed, she performed in plays by Hebbel, Wedekind, Eulenberg and Ibsen in theatres in Berlin and Leipzig. Her marriage with a publisher lasted only a few months and they divorced in 1913. She then moved to Munich, where she acted at the Neues Theater. Between 1922 and 1935, she lived in Italy and France. After returning to Munich, she worked as an actress and interpreter.

In September 1939, she was denounced for dissident remarks, arrested and charged with »malice«. Declared criminally incapable, she was admitted to the State Hospital and Nursing Home Eglfing-Haar. On 1 September 1943, she was admitted to the local »hunger house«. When she was there, she wrote letters to her family, asking for bread.  She was deliberately  left to starve and died on 28 September 1944.