Dorothea Buck

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Dorothea Buck (also JE Deranders or Sophie Zerchin) (born April 5, 1917 in Naumburg ad Saale ; † October 9, 2019 in Hamburg ) was a German author and sculptor . When she was forcibly sterilized , she was a victim of the Nazi dictatorship and became an important figure in the Psychiatry -Experienced movement .

Life

Dorothea Buck grew up as the fourth of five children in Naumburg an der Saale.

In 1936, at the age of nineteen, she was admitted to the Von Bodelschwingh Institute in Bethel with the diagnosis of " schizophrenia " . It was there that she first got to know the inhuman practices that were common in psychiatry in the first half of the 20th century - such as long baths and cold water over the head for “ discipline ”. However, she found the “complete speechlessness” to be particularly humiliating: the patients were not allowed to speak to one another, conversations between staff and patients were unusual.

Dorothea Buck was forcibly sterilized on September 18, 1936 in the Von Bodelschwingh institutions in Bethel , Bielefeld , due to the “ Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Offspring ” .

From 1937 Dorothea Buck learned the pottery trade and from 1942 attended the private Städel art college in Frankfurt am Main . Admission to the university was only possible because she kept silent about her psychiatric stay and, above all, about sterilization, because the Nazi regime refused access to higher educational institutions, among other things.

In 1943, during a further stay in psychiatry, this time at the university clinic in Frankfurt am Main, she saw fellow patients become victims of so-called euthanasia , that is, were murdered by psychiatrists.

Bronze "Mother and Child" (1964), in front of a school in Hamburg-Wandsbek

After the war Dorothea Buck started working as a sculptor. At the end of April 1950 she went to Empfertshausen (Thuringia) to acquire the journeyman's certificate as a wood sculptor, which was a prerequisite for studying at an art college. From 1969 to 1982 she was a teacher for arts and crafts at the Fachschule für Sozialpädagogik  I in Hamburg .

Media reports in the early 1960s about the still inhumane conditions in German psychiatric institutions motivated Dorothea Buck to work to improve them. She wrote a play about the hundreds of thousands of times the murder of the mentally ill and handicapped during the Nazi era, wrote numerous essays and gave lectures to educate people and to promote a more humane psychiatry in the present.

From 1989 - the experience of “speechlessness” in psychiatry had remained unforgettable to her - she was committed to setting up psychosis seminars . In Hamburg, together with the psychologist Thomas Bock , she founded the first facility of this kind in the psychiatry of the university clinic , in which patients, relatives and psychiatric workers entered into an equal exchange of knowledge, opinions and experiences (trialogue) on mental illnesses.

In 1990 , Dorothea Buck's biography On the Trail of the Morning Star appeared under the pseudonym Sophie Zerchin, an anagram of the word schizophrenia .

In 1992 Dorothea Buck founded the Federal Association of Experienced Psychiatrists with other victims , of which she was honorary chairman until her death.

(In 2007, she gave a keynote address - experienced and witnessed 70 years in forced psychiatric German ) at the congress "Coercive Treatment in Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Review" ( "Psychiatric coercive treatment An Overview.") Of the World Psychiatric Association in Dresden .

Dorothea Buck died in Hamburg in 2019 and was buried in the old Niendorfer cemetery .

Awards and honors

Buck received two classes of the Federal Cross of Merit: 1997 the Cross of Merit 1st Class, in 2008 the Great Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2017, the Senate of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg awarded her the silver medal for loyal work in the service of the people .

In honor of her 102nd birthday on April 5, 2019, the Federal Association of Psychiatry Experienced e. V. the festive and celebratory pamphlet dedicated to her Psychosis as Self-Finding - Soon 100 votes for Dorothea Buck's 100th birthday .

In 1996, while she was still alive, a dormitory for mentally ill people in Bottrop was named after her.

Quote

At the congress of the German Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology (DGPPN) in 2010, Sigrid Falkenstein quoted Buck's words in her speech as a member of Anna Lehnkering , who was murdered in the course of Action T4 : “What is not remembered can always be repeated happen when the external living conditions deteriorate significantly. ”On January 27, 2017, the Bundestag commemorated the victims of psychiatric mass murder and forced sterilization during the Nazi regime. In her speech, Falkenstein spoke of Dorothea Buck and repeated the quote.

Work (selection)

  • Dorothea Buck-Zerchin: Do not be discouraged. Texts 1968-2001. Anne Fischer Verlag, Norderstedt ISBN 3-926049-32-4 and Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2002 (out of print).
  • Dorothea-Sophie Buck-Zerchin: On the trail of the morning star - psychosis as self-discovery. Anne Fischer Verlag, Norderstedt ISBN 978-3-926049-47-6 and Paranus Verlag, Neumünster 2005 ISBN 978-3-926200-65-5 .
  • Dorothea Buck: Encouragements - Selected Writings. Anne Fischer Verlag, Norderstedt ISBN 978-3-926049-63-6 and Paranus Verlag, Neumünster 2012 ISBN 978-3-940636-21-8 .
  • Dorothea Buck et al. a .: With my best regards! Yours Dorothea Buck - The Garden House Correspondence . Paranus Verlag, Neumünster 2016 ISBN 978-3-940636-37-9 .

Films (selection)

  • Edgar Hagen: From madness to meaning , 45 minutes
  • Alexandra Pohlmeier : Heaven and more - Dorothea Buck on the trail , 90 minutes, 2008
  • Alexandra Pohlmeier: 20 Years of Trialog - The Hamburg Psychosis Seminar and the Consequences , 52 minutes, 2009, Paranus-Verlag
  • Alexandra Pohlmeier: Incredible , 23 minutes, 2011

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ As long as we talk to each other, we won't kill ourselves. In: www.zeit.de, Zeit Online. October 10, 2019, accessed October 11, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Friederike Gräff: Obituary for Dorothea Buck: Transform the pain . In: The daily newspaper: taz . November 1, 2019, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed November 1, 2019]).
  3. ↑ Lea Diehl: The house visit: A fighter for the soul . In: The daily newspaper: taz . September 18, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed October 2, 2018]).
  4. ↑ Peter Lehmann , Reinhard Wojke: Video, photo and text documentation of “Psychiatrische Zwangsbehlung. An overview". Congress, organized by the World Psychiatric Association in Dresden from June 6th to 8th, 2007
  5. ↑ Grave site at garten-der-frauen.de
  6. ^ [1] Federal Cross of Merit for Dorothea Buck . In: Hamburger Morgenpost from February 20, 2008, p. 20
  7. ↑ [2] Dorothea Buck honored for her life's work. Health Senator Prüfer-Storcks pays tribute to the 99-year-olds' commitment to human psychiatry . Press office of the Senate, Hamburg, February 22, 2017 / bgv22a
  8. ↑ [3] On April 5, 2019 Dorothea Buck will be 102 years old. The Federal Association of Psychiatry Experienced e. V. honors the survivor and fighter against hereditary psychiatry with a special kind of commemorative publication . Press release from BPE e. V., Bochum, April 4, 2019
  9. ↑ [4] Speech by Sigrid Falkenstein at the memorial event "Psychiatry under National Socialism - Remembrance and Responsibility" on the occasion of the annual meeting of the German Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology, Berlin, November 2010
  10. ↑ [5] Bundestag commemorates the victims of "euthanasia" in the Nazi state . German Bundestag, January 27, 2017
  11. ↑ Heaven and more - on the trail of Dorothea Buck. Retrieved October 14, 2019 (film website). Heaven and more - Dorothea Buck on the track (2009) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
personal data
SURNAME Buck, Dorothea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zerchin, Sophie; Deranders, JE
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author and human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Naumburg ad Saale
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 2019
Place of death Hamburg