Fanny Schoonheyt

Fanny Schoonheyt (born June 15, 1912 in Rotterdam , † December 23, 1961 ) was a Dutch resistance fighter during the Spanish Civil War , where she fought on the side of the Republicans - she is the only woman who took part in the fighting. This made her famous in both Spanish and Dutch circles as the "Queen of the Machine Gun".

biography

Fanny was born as the only daughter of the merchant Jules Alphons Schoonheyt and the sewing studio owner Johanne born from Isselhorst in Westphalia . Gehring was born. Her professional career began as a secretary for the Dutch newspaper Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant .

At the end of 1934 she decided to leave her home country. She moved to Spain and lived in the old town of Barcelona . She worked there as a foreign correspondent. Because of the dominant fascist currents there, Schoonheyt, more and more turned towards anti-fascism , joined the PSUC ( Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya ; German for example: "Socialist Unity Party of Catalonia"). Out of this motivation she joined the resistance rebellion against Franco's regime.

After Franco's troops won in 1939, they decided to move to the Dominican Republic . Their only daughter was born there in 1940. In 1947 she was deported. She then lived in Curaçao until 1957 . She built a life as a photographer there under the name Fanny Lopez. A homecoming to the Netherlands followed. In 1961 she died of a heart attack there.

literature

• Yvonne Scholten: Fanny Schoonheyt: een Nederlands meisje strijdt in de Spaanse burgeroorlog. January 2012