Helene Melanie Lebel's Illness

Helene Melanie Lebel, one of two daughters born to a Jewish family, was raised as a Catholic in Vienna. Her father died during World War I when Helene was only 5 years old, and when Helene was 15, her mother remarried. Helene entered law school, but at age 19, she started showing signs of an illness. By 1935, her illness became so bad severe that she had to give up her law studies. Helene was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and was placed in Vienna’s Steinhof Psychiatric Hospital. Although her condition improved in 1940, Helene was forced to stay in Steinhof. Her parents believed she would soon be released, but in August, her mother was informed that Helene was transferred to Niedernhart. She was actually transported to Brandenburg, Germany where she was led into a gas chamber or room? disguised as a shower room, and was gassed to death. Helene was listed as dying in her room of “acute schizophrenic excitement”.

In late 1938, Slovak soldiers who sided with Hitler took over the hotel. Thomas, his father, and those in the hotel fled to Zilina, and then across the border to Poland. Thomas and his father then boarded a train that would take them to England, but the German army bombed the train. Thomas thereafter joined other refugees, and walked north to Kielce. In 1944, Thomas was deported to Auschwitz with his parents where he was then forced to walk the Death March. Him He and two other boys devised a way to rest as they walked, by running to the front of the line and then slowly walk or stay put until the rear of the line reached them. Thomas was one of the only three children who survived the Death