Maria PELLER, née Poncelet, was born in the Bohemian village of Ketzelsdorf am Königreichwald (in the Trautenau [Trutnov] district of what is now the Czech Republic but was then part of Austria-Hungary) on December 7, 1871. She was the second wife of a railroader named Wenzel PELLER, who came from Neuern in Bohemia.
The couple married in the Old Catholic Church (which had broken away from the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century) and had three children. They had local citizenship rights in the Gnigl community that was annexed to the city of Salzburg in 1935 and lived at 4 Ferdinand-Hanusch-Straße (which was renamed Moosbauernstraße in 1935) in what is now the Schallmoos neighborhood.
Maria PELLER was declared legally incompetent under the Nazi regime and on January 12, 1940 she was committed to the Salzburg State Asylum. She was one of 29 patients who were deported from there to the Hartheim Castle killing center near Linz on April 18, 1941 — where they were all murdered.
As with all the other victims of the Nazis’ secret »T4«1 program, the death of the 69 year old Maria PELLER was not recorded in the Salzburg police registration files.
Her husband Wenzel PELLER died in Salzburg at age 88. The actual fate of her youngest son Kurt, who had been born in 1918, is unclear but he is reported as »lost in the war«.
1 It was called »T4« because its Berlin headquarters were located at Tiergartenstraße 4.
Main persons responsible for the murders of the sick in Salzburg: Dr. Friedrich Rainer as Reichsstatthalter, Dr. Oskar Hausner as head of the Gaufürsorgeamt, Dr. Leo Wolfer as head of the Landesheilanstalt and Dr. Heinrich Wolfer as head of the hereditary biology department of the Landesheilanstalt (today Christian Doppler Clinic).
Sources
- Salzburg city archives
- Schloss Hartheim Learning and Remembrance Center
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 14.11.2016 at Salzburg, Vogelweiderstraße 88
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer