– letter of Emma Hauck to Mark Hauck (1909)
On February 7, 1909, a thirty-year-old mother of two by the name of Emma Hauck was admitted to the psychiatric hospital at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, having recently been diagnosed with dementia praecox — a mental disorder now commonly known as schizophrenia. The outlook improved briefly and a month later she was discharged, only to be readmitted within weeks as her condition deteriorated further. Sadly, the downturn continued and in August of that year, with her illness deemed “terminal” and rehabilitation no longer an option, Hauck was transferred to Wiesloch Asylum, where she would pass away eleven years later.
It was after her death that a harrowing collection of letters was discovered in the archives of the Heidelberg hospital, all written compulsively in Emma’s hand during her second stay at the clinic in 1909, at a time when reports indicate she was relentlessly speaking of her family. Each desperate letter is directed to her absent husband, Mark, and every page is thick with overlapping text.
Some are so condensed as to be illegible; some read “Herzensschatzi komm” (“Sweetheart, come”) over and over; others simply repeat the plea, “komm komm komm,” (“come, come, come”) thousands of times.
None were sent.
– “Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience” by Shaun Usher