Bio of Robert K. Wagemann ~ October 20, 2004

In 1937, while pregnant with Robert, his mother Lotte Wagemann was arrested due to her activities as on of Jehovah’s Witnesses and briefly incarcerated. She gave birth shortly after being released. Due to stress and limited prenatal care, the delivery was a breech birth, and Robert’s right hip was permanently damaged. His right leg is six inches shorter then the left.

Under the T4 Program, he was classified as handicapped, and twice targeted for extermination. The first time they escape to Berlin, and lived with relatives. The second time was 1943, when his mother was ordered to come with Robert to Schlierbach by Heidelberg to a hospital to be examined. The Nazi Doctor’s confirmed the status of his handicapped condition. During the examination, she overheard a conversation by the Doctor’s that he was to be classified as permanently handicapped, and would be given a lethal injection after lunch. When the Doctors left for lunch, she got Robert’s clothes, picked him up and fled.

Shortly there after their House in Mannheim was bombed and they went to Robert’s Grandparents (father side) to Iggelheim. First day of school Robert did not do the Hitler salute nor sing the national anthem (Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles…) next day officials from the town came and wanted to pick him up. Due to the interference of his grandpa they left without him.

It was high time to move on, so they went to a town called Haardt by Neustadt a.d. Weinstrasse and lived with Robert’s grandparents (mother side). There in a little cabin in the woods they spent the remainder of the war.

The family survived the war, and in 1963, Robert immigrated with his wife Renate and two of their sons to the United States. They are now married for 45 years have threes sons and five grandchildren.

His mother is still living (going on 90), his father who was also blacklisted as a Jehovah’s Witness and sought after by the nazis, died in 1984.

Robert lives now with his wife Renate in Fairfield, NJ.