crafts. After Kurt Lohse divorced her in May 1935 she was incapacitated due to "incurable insanity". After refusing to consent to a sterilisation, she was denied the permission to go out of the hospital any more. In December 1935, she underwent a forced surgical sterilisation in the Dresden-Friedrichstadt women's hospital on the grounds of Nazi eugenicist policies. After this traumatic event she never painted again. In 1940 she was deported to the former psychiatric institution at Pirna-Sonnenstein (located in the Sonnenstein castle in Pirna), where, on 31 July, she was murdered along with the majority of the other residents as part of the Nazi "euthanasia" program, Action T4. The official cause of death was "pneumonia with myocardial insufficiency". In the years of 1940 and 1941, a total of 13,720 mainly mentally ill or disabled people were gassed by Nazis in this institution formerly well known for its humanistic traditions. Works Her most creative period falls within the time of her stay in Hamburg. From 1927 to 1931, she painted some of her major works. The portraits of mentally ill people she drew in Hamburg-Friedrichsberg (1929) and Arnsdorf (1932–1935) have attracted much interest. As part of the "degenerate art" campaign by the Nazis nine of her works from the art museum Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Altonaer Museum were confiscated and presumably destroyed in 1937, as well as a large part of her paintings from Arnsdorf. Commemoration and legacy Renewed interest in Lohse-Wächtler started with a presentation of some of her paintings in Reinbek near Hamburg. In 1994, an association for the promotion of the works of Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler was founded (Förderkreis Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler). 1996 saw the publication of the first monograph on her works, written by Georg Reinhardt. This and the exhibitions in Dresden, Hamburg-Altona and Aschaffenburg marked the beginning of a broader reception of the artist's work and fate. In 1999, there was a stele erected in memory of her at the Saxon Hospital in Arnsdorf and a ward house named after her. In Pirna-Sonnenstein, a street was dedicated to her in 2005, and since 2008, a street in Arnsdorf also carries her name. At the former hospital site in Friedrichsberg (Hamburg-Barmbek-Süd), a rose garden with a commemorative plaque was designed for her in 2004. In the development area close by, another street was also given her name. Exhibitions These were some of the most important expositions on the work