Doris Gladnikoff, née Wedell, lived in Bad Kissingen for only one spa season. She came from a wealthy Jewish family in Berlin had got an education as a technical assistant. On September 27, 1914, she was born in Berlin-Charlottenburg as the second child of the Berlin merchant Georg Wedell and his wife Margarete, née Glogauer. She had a brother who was two years her senior. Doris’ father owned a wholesale firm for wood and coal that had been founded in 1921. The firm was situated in Morsestrasse 10a in the Spreebogen in Charlottenburg. The family lived in a rented villa in Kronberger Strasse in Dahlem.

In May 1935, Doris Wedell moved to Bad Kissingen and was employed as a technical assistant by Dr. Kurt Regensburger in Kurhausstrasse. In September, she already returned to Berlin.

In 1937, Doris’ father died and his wholesale business was forced-sold and then dissolved. Her mother Margarete had to hand in her savings and other possessions. 

Doris Wedell succeeded in escaping to Sweden where she married Hermann Gladnikoff in Västeras/ Västmanland in June 1942. He had been born in Södermalm, a district of Stockholm and was also a Jew. Their four children were born in Bromma, a district in western Stockholm, between 1943 and 1945.

Doris’ older brother Hans Norbert, who called himself Harold after his emigration to England, also survived the Nazi Era. On the contrary, their mother Margarete became a victim of the Shoa. On January 25, 1942, she was chased into a waiting train to Riga in the freight depot of Moabit. 1.044 people were deported in it. Immediately after their arrival on January 30, 1942, Margarete Wedell was shot – two months before her 50^th birthday.

Doris Gladnikoff died in Södermalm in December 1988 at the age of 74; her husband lived till January 1995.