The Arbeiterwohlfahrt in Bayern (AWO) wants to work up abuse in former AWO children’s sanatoriums with a scientific study. It is part of the AWO’s self-image to “clarify any past mistakes,” according to a statement on Tuesday. One wants to clarify the history of the former AWO children’s sanatoriums in Stauffenhof (Bad Reichenhall-Nonn), Klosterhof (Bayerisch-Gmain) and Buchenwinkl (Dorfen near Wolfratshausen).
According to the announcement, the reason for the scientific work-up was the descriptions of physical and mental abuse in a former AWO facility as well as the public media discussion about assaults in children’s sanatoriums in general. The historians Johannes Lang and Hermann Rumschöttel are to undertake the study of the history of the former children’s sanatoriums. For a complete picture, they are now looking for contemporary witnesses who got to know the AWO homes from the inside. The former Vice-President of the German Bundestag, Susanne Kastner, is responsible for the history of the AWO children’s sanatoriums in Bavaria.