Anna Maria WAHL, born on June 9, 1872 in Salzburg, was the second of three children of the married couple Maria, née Zeller, and Alfred WAHL.
Her father, who died at an early age, was a café owner on Platzl, in the corner building Dreifaltigkeitsgasse/Linzer Gasse: then Café Zeller, then Café Lohr and now a shoe store.
Anna Maria WAHL’s mother came from the prominent Salzburg merchant and factory owner family Bolland-Zeller, who owned the Andre Hofer department store and the fig coffee factory of the same name.
Anna Maria WAHL’s grandfather Franz Zeller, married to Marie Bolland, was founder of the fig coffee factory, president of the Chamber of Commerce and vice mayor in Salzburg.
His business expanded under his son Ludwig Zeller, who was also president of the Chamber of Commerce. The latter’s sister Emma was the wife of the physician Dr. Albert Schumacher, for a time mayor and governor of Salzburg – families that made history in Salzburg.
After Ludwig Zeller’s death, his nephews Alfred and Dr. Bruno WAHL, Anna Maria’s brothers, inherited the house at Faberstraße 6 in Salzburg’s Andräviertel: address of the once flourishing Andre Hofer family business.
Not far from there, in the house Hubert-Sattler-Gasse 7, 1st floor, lived since the 1890s the early widowed Maria WAHL, née Zeller, and her daughter Anna Maria, who remained unmarried, according to her own information was a writer, in any case active as a journalist and wrote articles about folk art.
Her mother died at the age of 92 on February 25, 1933, with which the now 60-year-old daughter lost her caregiver.
Her older brother Alfred was post office director in Graz, her younger brother Bruno was director of the Federal Institute for Plant Protection in Vienna. Neither of them lived in Salzburg even under the Nazi regime.
From the registration data it can be concluded that Anna Maria WAHL had been in inpatient treatment several times – presumably because of psychological problems – and in December 1934 was admitted to the Landesheilanstalt Salzburg-Lehen, where she remained until the secret operation »T-4«1 carried out under the Nazi regime, for which in the »Reichsgau« Salzburg the physicians Dr. Leo Wolfer as director of the state sanatorium and his son Dr. Heinrich Wolfer as head of department as well as the state official Dr. Oskar Hausner as head of the »Gaufürsorgeamt« and Dr. Friedrich Rainer as »Reichsstatthalter« were responsible.
The 68-year-old Anna Maria WAHL was deported to Hartheim in the fourth and last transport – 85 inmates of the state sanatorium – on May 21, 1941 and gassed there.
In the memorial protocol of the physician Dr. Johann Gföllner, the head of the women’s department of the Salzburg State Sanatorium, it says:
Another case that was deeply moving was that of an intelligent woman from the 1st Care Class, a writer (Anna Maria Wahl), who had to be locked into the cell for several days before the action so that she would not witness the inventory process and therefore not become upset.
As the escort team took her from the women’s clinic into the bus she shouted in a shrill voice »vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord …«
Anna WAHL’s name was number 76 on the list for the fourth and final shipment to the killing center at Hartheim Castle on May 21, 1941.
1 It was called the »T4« program because its Berlin headquarters were located at Tiergartenstraße 4.
Quellen
- Salzburg City Archives
- Schloss Hartheim Learning and Memorial Center
Johannes Hofinger
Translation: DeepL
Stumbling Stone
Laid 22.08.2007 at Salzburg, Hubert-Sattler-Gasse 7
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer