Charlotte O. (1866 – 1943)

Charlotte O. (pseudonym) grew up as the daughter of a wealthy landowner with her brother and sister near Moscow. She did not attend school; instead, she was tutored privately at home. At the age of 22, she married a chemist with a doctorate, who later became the director of a factory in Moscow. The marriage produced no children.

After the Russian October Revolution, she fled the Bolsheviks in 1917, together with her husband, to Germany, specifically to the city of Munich. Nothing is known about many years of her life. After she was widowed, the once-rich Charlotte O. was left in poverty. In the nursing home, she had problems with her fellow residents and felt she was being persecuted. She was transferred to the psychiatric department of Schwabing Hospital. Charlotte O. wanted to return home; she did not know why she was in the hospital, demanded justice and equal treatment for all. Since the home did not want to accommodate her anymore and she could not live alone, Charlotte O. was transferred to the Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home on June 22, 1939.

Charlotte O. was aware of the stereotypes that existed about patients in institutions. She wrote to a friend on September 18, 1939: “Why don’t you come? You know well that I can’t get away from here if you don’t pick me up. Perhaps you don’t trust yourself to come to Haar, but don’t believe some dumb people's blather: nothing will happen to you. Please be so good and pick me up from here very soon” (BAObb, EH, patient files no. 9350).

When she broke her upper arm on May 8, 1941, Charlotte O. was provided with only minimal care: “Given the restlessness and denial of the patient and the pointless prognosis without a sling, no therapy” (ibid.). In the next two years, she was transferred back and forth between different departments. Hardly anything about her condition is documented in her chart. Charlotte O. died of a lung infection in December 1943. The record-keeping in her chart suggests a killing with overdosed medications.