[Ego documents of people with epilepsy during National Socialism].

Abstract

Background: People with epilepsy were a stigmatized and persecuted group under National Socialism. Nevertheless, there are only a few historical works that specifically address the reality of life for this group in Nazi Germany.

Objective: In the sense of a heuristic pioneer study, the reality of life of in-patients with epilepsy in a selected institution is systematically researched and presented.

Material and methods: Numerous patient files from the Bonn sanatorium (Heil- und Pflege-Anstalt Bonn) were analyzed using the historical-critical method. Some of these files contain letters and other testimonies from the patients. This study concentrates on these ego documents and on letters from relatives.

Results: While coping with everyday life was central to the patients, some relatives were more concerned with the question of the hereditary nature of the epilepsy; others, who wanted to help their hospitalized relatives were increasingly unable to do so after 1939.

Conclusion: Only an overall view of all types of sources in medical records (medical history forms, nursing reports, ego documents and letters from relatives), which has so far often been neglected, enables an approximate understanding of the situation of hospitalized patients with epilepsy during the National Socialist era and the post-war period.