Hülya Marquardt is a seminar manager, influencer, wife and mother of a four-year-old son. Almost 300,000 people follow her on Instagram. Due to dysmelia, she is missing both legs.
She advises women on fashion, has more than 292,000 followers on Instagram – and has no legs. Hülya Marquardt lives near Backnang and is the mother of a four-year-old. Despite all the challenges of her illness, she has never lost her sense of humor. The future prospects seem bleak when she is born. Her mother, just 17 years old, looks worriedly at the deformed legs of her first child. A year ago, the young mother, who barely speaks any German, was married from a Turkish village to a charming man with an amputated leg who, as the son of a guest worker in Germany, lives in Hagen in North Rhine-Westphalia.
His dysmelia – a malformation of the limbs – has obviously been passed on to his daughter. Two fingers on her right hand, four on her left – how would Hülya cope with her life? In order to save what could be saved, the girl underwent around twenty operations on her legs by the age of six – the first time at two months. The children’s ward at Münster University Hospital became her second home. Lovingly cared for by the nurses, Marquardt learned German in addition to her Turkish mother tongue.
She also had her first school lessons in the hospital, until she was six months late starting regular primary school. Her parents finally enrolled her in a religious girls’ boarding school in Ankara, where she completed the 9th grade. It was a good time, even though the rules were strict. “As a punishment, we sometimes had to stand on one leg. They turned a blind eye to me,” Marquardt smiles.
After her parents divorced, Marquardt initially lived with her mother and her sisters, then moved in with her father. But his father was very busy with his work. Her longing for community and a stimulating environment was satisfied at the boarding school of the Evangelische Stiftung Volmarstein in Wetter an der Ruhr. “I had many friends from different cultures and great teachers and instructors,” says Marquardt.
At the age of 18 she decides to have an amputation
She gets leading roles in musicals, does sports, does numerous internships – in a children’s home, in a doctor’s office – and after secondary school she completes an apprenticeship as a clerk for office communication. At the age of 18, Marquardt, who repeatedly struggles with pain and inflammation, decides on the advice of the doctors to have her legs amputated. She is particularly afraid of saying goodbye to her second leg and the finality that comes with it, which manifests itself in nightmares. Once she has it behind her, it is not so bad.
After nine years at boarding school, the young woman lives independently in an apartment and enjoys her job in the social services department of a retirement home, where she has been given increasing responsibility. So the move to Dennis Marquardt’s Swabian home is not easy for her. The teacher, whom she met on Facebook without any intention of a relationship, turned out to be the perfect match. The two married and moved to Oberweissach (Rems-Murr district). Later, the seminar manager at the Stuttgart Region Chamber of Crafts had a completely uncomplicated pregnancy. Her son Rangi was born healthy.
Hülya Marquardt, supported by her husband and cameraman Dennis, shows more than 292,000 followers from all over the world on Instagram that life is beautiful and offers countless possibilities – even without legs. In the fashion boutique that she runs with her mother-in-law in Unterweissach, the friendly woman with prosthetic legs advises customers. She drives around Stuttgart’s Schlossplatz in a wheelchair, and on the playground or on the beach, the woman with her trained arms pulls herself over the uneven terrain with the help of push-up bars – handles that look like irons. “I have a lot of faith in life and just let it happen,” says Marquardt. “Many experiences have made me stronger. In retrospect, it was always as it should be.”
