Biographie

Josefa K. was born on 24 April 1921 in Strobin, a Polish village south-west of Łódź.

It is likely that she had been displaced to Germany as a young girl in 1942 to conduct forced labour and made to work in agriculture in Rommerode near Witzenhausen. As she had allegedly destroyed her employer's letters and left her work several times without permission, she was arrested on 4 February 1943 and taken to the Breitenau "work education camp" (AEL) on 9 February. The diagnosis of the examining resident doctor at Breitenau read "idiocy" which is why she was to be transferred to a psychiatric institution. As a result, even the Reich Security Main Office (Reichsicherheitshauptamt) began pushing for her immediate transfer to the “state hospital” (Landesheilanstalt) of Hadamar in the district of Limburg. Josefa was brought to Hadamar on 22 May 1943 and officially admitted on the 26^th. Here, the doctors that examined Josefa once again diagnosed her with "congenial idiocy" and thus sealed her fate. On 8 June 1943, after just one and a half months in Hadamar, Josefa died. According to staff, the cause of death was intestinal flu. This concealed the murder because it is likely that Josefa died of targeted neglect, by injection or by an overdose of medication. Josefa K. was only 22 years old.

Since 1991, Josefa K.'s fate has been commemorated at Hadamar Memorial as well as the fates of all those persecuted and murdered at the Hadamar "euthanasia" killing centre.