As young lovers fleeing Nazi Germany, the Rothmans risked their lives to save each other. Frederick Rothman, a Jew from Vienna, ventured through dangerous streets to find a doctor the night his wife miscarried, ending forever their hopes for children. Hildegard Rothman, a German Christian, faced down police who captured her husband, and miraculously, talked them into giving him back to her.

As an autumn afternoon waned and a private nurse prepared a dinner tray for her, Rothman spoke about growing old, losing strength and trying to reconcile frailty with memories of the resilient couple in the old photo.

By December 1992, Frederick Rothman, gravely ill, fell daily. "I tried. I couldn't lift him up," Hildegard Rothman said. "I rolled him over and put a cover on him as good as I could."

He was admitted to Hollywood Medical Center and continued to fail. Overwhelmed, Hildegard Rothman collapsed with chest pains at her husband's bedside, and was hospitalized as well.

Still, she believed she would grow strong enough to take him home again and save him one last time. "I said I must get strong for him," she recalled. "I was going to put a bed in the living room so he could look out the window."

Instead, the hospital called in a private nonprofit guardianship company, South Florida Guardianship Program, which went to court and had both the Rothmans' rights removed before they realized there were legal actions pending against them, Hildegard Rothman said.

Frederick Rothman died 18 days later, leaving his widow to fight guardianship alone.

Her voice dropped to a whisper as she recounted her humiliation at having a stranger, a professional guardian, come into her life, uninvited, and take over.

"One day I went to the bank and I wanted to put more money in," Rothman said. "The lady . . . said to me, I can't take your money because you don't have an account any more. I thought she made a joke.

"I said how do you mean I don't have an account because nobody told me they had closed that account. She said, 'I'm sorry. I can't tell you anything.' "

Kathleen Phillips, president of South Florida Guardianship Program, Inc., said that her company acted fairly and gave Rothman needed help, such as arranging her husband's funeral, paying household bills, and hiring a part-time companion.

"We came in to protect her, that was our only goal," Phillips said. "I can't tell you she was happy. I don't know if I would want you to go into my bank accounts, to tell you the truth. But if I needed help, I'd want the help we gave her."

Rothman did not get a chance to tell her side in court until five weeks after she had lost the right to run her own life. The widow's testimony convinced a court officer that she was grieving, not incompetent, and deserved her life back.

Still, Rothman insists that she is, after all, an ETG fatality. She will die without ever feeling safe again.

"I don't trust anyone anymore," she said. "I am lost."