Auguste Elise Schmid came from Bülkau in the Hadeln district. She was born in Hemmoor. Her parents were the mechanic Karl Friedrich Schmid and his divorced wife Anna Auguste Brüning, née Daberkahl. Her father worked in a cement factory. Auguste had a brother. His name was Karl, like his father. After school, Auguste Schmid worked as a domestic help on a farm in the neighborhood. Her mother entered into a second marriage, from which her half-sister Erika was born.
Auguste Schmid had a love affair with the married Josef Unger, who was in the navy in Cuxhaven. He was Hungarian and came from Kirchfidisch in Burgenland (Austria). He was a lance corporal in the submarine fleet. The marriage produced two daughters: Gisela (born in 1934) and Elfriede (born in 1936).
Auguste Schmid fell ill in 1937. Because she was in Hamburg at the time, she was admitted to the »Friedrichsberg State Hospital«. Ten weeks later, she was transferred from there to Lüneburg. Her daughters, only one and two years old, were then raised by her friend Martha Niehaus. Josef Unger visited his children and brought them sweets. From the beginning of the war, he only came when he was on leave. In May 1944, his submarine sank off the Dutch coast. The Lüneburg institution and nursing home applied for Auguste Schmid’s forced sterilization. This was carried out in 1938. Five years later, Auguste Schmid was transferred to the Pfafferode killing center on September 8, 1943. She died there on July 8, 1944, a victim of »euthanasia«. Her daughters never knew her.
