It is a black and white photo in a wooden picture frame. It is a half-length shot of guard Ernst Bünger, so that he can only be recognised up to his knees. He is wearing his uniform with peaked cap and starched shirt. He stands upright with his hands clasped behind his back. He looks directly into the camera with a serious expression. He has a moustache.

Keeper Ernst Bünger, 1923, provenance Hans-Peter Meier.

ArEGL 102.

It is a black and white photo in a golden picture frame. It shows twelve carers. Three carers are sitting in wicker chairs. Two are sitting on the floor in front of them and the others are grouped behind them. The carers are wearing their work uniforms. It is a striped, long-sleeved dress with a white apron and white cap. Most of them wear a nurse's brooch on their collar.

Group photo of the nurses at the institution Lüneburg with Auguste Bünger, née Thiemann (centre back row).

ArEGL 101.

AUGUSTE (b. THIEMANN) (1891 – 1963) AND ERNST BÜNGER (1883 – 1958)

The Bünger couple met as warder and warder in the Lüneburg sanatorium and nursing home and married in 1912. Ernst came from a poor family. He had learnt to be a glassblower in Stade and became a warder in 1911. This earned him more money. Auguste came to Lüneburg from Ummeln near Hildesheim to work as a guard. Two daughters were born in 1913 and 1915, and Auguste stopped working as a guard.

Due to low capacity utilisation, employees were allowed to live in the wards during the First World War. The Büngers moved into House 4, and when the number of patients increased, the family moved into the »Wardens’ Estate«. The Büngers continued to live there after their retirement. They used the bathhouse for bathing. Ernst Bünger was popular with the patients because of his humorous and friendly manner. In his spare time, he sang in the men’s choir and played in the theatre group that performed in the clinic’s social hall.

Ernst and Auguste Bünger observed that there was a sharp increase in the number of deaths during the Second World War. They suspected that patients were being murdered. As many suffered from hunger, they provided some of them with food from their garden.

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