Chapter Five: HOUSE OF SHUTTERS

Berlin Germany 1929

Wagner Residence

Hannele at a young age had already experienced mental struggles.

Aldous had already started his military career. 

One day while on duty as a royal guard, Editha went on a shopping spree with two of her maids, spending her parents' riches and left Hannele unattended in their family mansion; the child was just seven years old at the time.

The girl just got out of her slumber leaving her bedroom and was roaming around their three-story mansion. She entertained herself by playing with her dolls, turning on the radio, and dancing to the ballroom songs that were playing.

Then suddenly she heard her stomach growl for food. She was left hungry after being unattended the whole morning plus she used up all her energy dancing and playing.

The girl began to scavenge the house, looking for anything that she could eat.

To her dismay, she could not find anything in the drawers and she was too short to reach for the drawers above the sink. The girl was starving and she needed to eat something. Frustrated, she threw a tantrum on the kitchen floor.

She then heard a little "squeak" from below the kitchen sink curious at what caused the sound. She opened the kitchen cabinets below the sink and saw a house rat half the size of a regular cat inside the trap her father had placed the night before.

"Eat it, my child."

"Look at that rat, it's asking you to devour it." a voice inside her head was suggesting she eat the rodent.

Hannele then pulled the trap near her and took the pinned rat, she then bit it on the neck sucking the blood from the rodent until it was lifeless, having no reaction to the disgusting taste not even showing single remorse.

She went to the living room with the rat still in her hand. She laid down and slept.

Editha returned home an hour after the incident, shocked, speechless, and disgusted by the scene.

She saw her daughter laying on the couch sleeping with a lifeless rat on the floor.

She then woke her daughter up asking what happened.

"It wasn't me!"

"It wasn't me, mother"

"The voice in my head asked me to kill the rat." Seeing her mother shocked and disgusted at her, the child sobbed.

"Stay right there, don't take a step near me," Editha said, terrified of her own daughter.

The mother ordered the maids to give her daughter a bath since she was too disgusted to touch Hannele.

Editha was left speechless on what she heard, at that moment she believed that her daughter was possessed by a demon.

On would say, that at this age, a child would have an imaginary friend that they would play with, however, it wasn't the friend asking her to do all the violent things, it was herself.

She started being violent in school. At one point, she attacked a boy and stabbed two pencils on each ear, leaving the boy deaf.

Parents at the school signed a petition to expel Hannele, which was successful.

Not long enough the family became the talk of the town, with no son to carry the family name and a possessed daughter? What a shame.

Something would take over Hannele's body when she was mad, she acted like a full-grown man.

The child then began to introduce herself as a man, a twenty-five-year-old serial killer. This personality was slowly taking over her body.

This was Hannele's second personality. It wasn't a demon that was possessing the child, it was a result of sexual and emotional abuse that took place when she was around two years old, from whom you ask?

From Benjamin, the child's seventy years old Grandfather. Editha's father.

But at that time, all they could think about was that she was possessed by demons or that she had a very strange imaginary friend.

Without receiving any kind of treatment, Hannele's situation just got even worse, the seven-year-old girl stopped school and was locked home, deprived of any social activities.

When her second personality would take over her body the maids were instantly ordered to tie her down in her room. Leaving the girl tied up for hours. The child was often left starving since everyone seemed to be afraid to enter the room; she was only set free when she slept.

The Wagner family became heavily frowned upon and Aldous was beyond embarrassed on what was going on. He needed to do something, so he decided to have their daughter confined at the Hadamar Euthanasia Centre known as the "House of Shutters."

A Psychiatric hospital located in the German town of Hadamar. which performed mass sterilizations and mass murder of "undesirable" members of German society, specifically those with physical and mental disabilities. In total, an estimated 200,000 people were killed at these facilities, including thousands of children.

It was a six-hour drive from their home in Berlin to the Hadamar Euthanasia Centre.

The poor girl was given two tablets of sleeping pills to avoid a manic episode while they were traveling.

When they got to the hospital they were immediately catered by a psychiatric Doctor who examined Hannele right away and took photos for documentation since it was the rarest case they've had in a long time.

Two hours of tests and four blood tests later. Hannele was diagnosed with "dementia praecox" or what we know today as schizophrenia and Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder).

The child was confined, it was hard for Editha to see her child suffering but she knew it was for the best.

For four years Hannele stayed in that hospital, her parents paid a monthly due making sure she got the best treatment and of course to keep her from being euthanized.

At the age of eleven, Hannele was finally released with a list of prescription drugs, and back home she had a personal maid that would make sure she takes the right tablet at the right time to avoid any manic episode.

Hannele continued her studies, she went to high school and that's where her dream of becoming a painter started, she somewhat was able to live a normal life.

However, it wasn't a happy ending for the Wagner Family, in 1941 Aldous was promoted as a Chief lieutenant and was assigned to manage the Jasenovac concentration camp in The independent state of Croatia.