Childhood Trauma: The Tragic Story of Jürgen Bartsch

Only after eleven months took the family Bartsch from the hospital. Ms. Bartsch is in the book being described as a housework maniac. She was disgusted when the child relapsed shortly after the release from hospital. It is also mentioned that the child had over and over bruises all over his body. The mother has every time given new explanation for these bruises, but they were little convincing. This means that Jürgen Bartsch was probably in his early childhood severely abused. Yet we cannot prove that, because the child does not remember his early childhood. But as the boy has several states of panic we can interpret that these states are consequences of hitting and punching. Another evil thing in the childhood of Jürgen Bartsch was that he

Till he was six years old he was allowed to go out only in the company of his grandmother and even then he was not allowed to play with other children or get dirty. In other words the boy grew up without the contact to other peers and friends. This also had consequences on the beginning of school. Because he did not know anybody, he did not have any friends and therefore he was the whipping boy of the first classes. At home he was pushed from one corner to the other. His parents did not have any time for him and they have beaten him for no reason. Once his mother threw even a meat knife at him. As he barely avoided the knife, his mother starts to yell at him and says: “This is a bad boy who lets that someone throws a knife at him and then simply avoids

This school kept a tight, strict and military rein on 300 boys from problematic families. These children were there beaten up, they had to perform hard work on the field and they were not allowed to communicate with each other. The clerics warned the youngsters about sexuality, they were for example not even allowed to look at a maid, furthermore they threatened them with sanctions. But exactly such a religious person seizes the opportunity as Jürgen gets ill to abuse him. Here it is to mention that the boy`s first sexual seduction was with his 13-year old cousin at the age of eight. That is why Jürgen Bartsch runs away from home and seeks refuge by his parents which cold-bloodedly send him back. So in all this time he had nobody who could have understand his distress and that is why he had to suppress his pain and grief. Jürgen`s talent helped him by the adaptation to the current conditions and for example not to rebel against the early imprisonment in the cellar. In the puberty however he cannot control his suppressed feelings so he lets them free. He starts to torment a small boy with leather pants the way he was tormented in his childhood, meaning with humiliations, threatening, destruction of dignity and frightening. Here the confinement gets an important role. As an adult Jürgen Bartsch attracts small boys into an underground bunker, in order to kill