Gertrud Keen
Gertrud Keen (born May 19, 1915 in Schöneberg; † December 11, 2004 in Berlin ) was a German anti-fascist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .
Life
Gertrud Keen grew up in Berlin-Schöneberg . Her father was a stove fitter , her mother a porter . She herself trained as an office assistant. She had a circle of friends with many KJVD members. As a youth, she joined the revolutionary trade union opposition against the wishes of her parents and took part in anti-fascist activities.
In autumn 1934 she was admitted to the Moringen women's concentration camp because, as an “enthusiastic communist”, she wanted to lay flowers at the grave of Rosa Luxemburg .
After her release from prison in 1935, she worked in Steglitz in the illegality of a resistance group that had formed around Bernhard Pampuch . There were points of contact with the “Emil Group” around Ruth Andreas-Friedrich and contacts to Berlin groups of the Rote Kapelle : “After Bernhard's and my release from prison, we first took a break. Then we formed an illegal group with others. I only knew Bernhard and Heimbert Schwandt. I only found out that Paul Scholz was the real head of the group after the liberation from fascism. Our resistance work was diverse: training, dissemination of underground material and support for families of persecuted people. "
From 1950 to 1954 she lived in Great Britain because of her childhood love with Henry Chasanowitsch, who fled the Nazis to England in 1933. After her return to Berlin, she became a member of the SPD and worked in the Schöneberg district office at the Senate Department for the Interior and at the Berlin Information Center. Keen was involved in the International League for Human Rights and as a contemporary witness on anti-fascist city tours of the Berlin Youth Association.
The sinologist and translator Ruth Keen (* 1952) is their daughter.
Documentaries
- Not everyone can be a hero ... (Gertrud Keen). In: Berlin contemporary witnesses. From the anti-fascist resistance ( Heinz Schröder - Gertrud Keen - Wolfgang Szepansky ). A documentary by Loretta Walz , video production Berlin, Landesjugendring Berlin 1993 (21 of 67 min.)
- I never said "Heil Hitler". Gertrud Keen, a German fate. Documentary by Vera Leiser, Absolut Medien , Berlin 1999 (45 min.)
literature
- Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : Resistance in Steglitz and Zehlendorf. 1933-1945. Volume 2. German Resistance Memorial Center, Berlin 1986, ISBN 978-3-926082-03-9 , Chapter Communist Resistance , p. 167 ff.
Web links
- Literature by and about Gertrud Keen in the bibliographic database WorldCat
- Burkhard Zimmermann: Gertrud Keen in memory (born May 19, 1915, died December 11, 2004) , SPD Berlin
- Jochen Schmidt: Gertrud Keen. Born 1915. In: Der Tagesspiegel, February 25, 2005
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : Resistance in Steglitz and Zehlendorf. 1933-1945. Volume 2, p. 169.
- ^ Gertrud Keen, quoted by Hans-Rainer Sandvoss : Resistance in Steglitz and Zehlendorf. 1933-1945. Volume 2, p. 169.
- ^ Film & conversation: Resistance fighter Gertrud Keen. onkeltomsladenstraße.de, accessed on December 17, 2017 (program announcement on the occasion of the 100th birthday).
- ↑ German Resistance Memorial Center, 2000
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Keen, Gertrude |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pampuch, Trude |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German anti-fascist and resistance fighter against National Socialism |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 19, 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schöneberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 11, 2004 |
| Place of death | Berlin |