Narrative interviews with individuals – whose years of institutional care can be located during the years from the 1940s to the 1970s – form the basis of this qualitative social research and culminate in a dual theoretical model: On the one hand, the interviewees’ dealings with adversities and breaks from childhood and youth in the course of their biographical development will be reconstructed. A detailed analysis of four selected main cases will be carried out resulting in biographical descriptions reconstructing their life stories to a certain extent. Next to the process structures according to Fritz Schütze dimensioning of biographical research in the field of education according to Winfried Martini will be factored in to test a more resource-oriented reading. On the other hand, the interviewees’ constructions will be looked at and their interests of presentation will be examined by analysing how the interviewees are presenting their dealings with breaks and adversities.