Hiltgunt Zassenhaus

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Grave of Hiltgunt Zassenhaus in the Memorial Garden ( Zion Church of the City of Baltimore , 2009)

Hiltgunt Margret Zassenhaus (after her emigration to the USA mostly: H. Margret Zassenhaus , born July 10, 1916 in Hamburg , †  November 20, 2004 in Baltimore ) was an American doctor and author of German origin. Through her support of Scandinavian prisoners in World War II, she was considered the angel of Fuhlsbüttel .

life and work

Hiltgunt Zassenhaus grew up in a family of the Hamburg educated middle class. She was the sister of the mathematician Hans Julius Zassenhaus . After graduating from high school in 1935 at Gymnasium Allee , she went to Denmark for 18 months. She then studied Scandinavian Studies at the University of Hamburg and became a qualified translator in 1938.

After the German invasion in Denmark and Norway in 1940 many prisoners were in the Hamburg prison Fuhlsbüttel spent. In October 1942, there was a high of 469 Norwegian prisoners. On October 17, 1942, the judicial administration employed Hiltgunt Zassenhaus as an interpreter and for letter censorship , which she failed to do. In 1943 she began studying medicine. From May 1943 she was used to monitor visits by the Norwegian and Danish seafarers' pastors. In fact, however, she took part - together with pastors Conrad Vogt-Svendsen and Arne Berge from the Norwegian Seamen's Mission in Hamburg - smuggling tobacco, food, medicine and writing materials. After the transfer of prisoners, she also traveled to Mecklenburg to visit the prisoners incarcerated in the Dreibergen prison near Bützow .

From the knowledge obtained in this way, she worked out a secret index containing the names and information of Danish and Norwegian prisoners. At the beginning of 1945, this card index proved to be an indispensable basis for the rescue operation of the White Buses , when Hiltgunt Zassenhaus was able to send it to the Swedish Red Cross. This enabled 735 prisoners to be included in the rescue operation.

After the end of the war, Hiltgunt Zassenhaus initially continued her medical studies in Hamburg. At the same time, she got involved with German orphans and founded an aid organization for this purpose. She continued studying in Copenhagen . In 1947 a first version of her memoirs was published under the title "Halt Wacht im Dunkel".

In 1952 she emigrated to the USA and opened a practice in Baltimore , where she worked until old age. She was a member of the Baltimore Medical Ethics Committee.

In 1974 a new version of her memoirs appeared under the title Walls , which was very successful in the USA and Scandinavia. In the same year she nominated the Norwegian Parliament for the Nobel Peace Prize . The American Library Association listed the book as one of the 25 Best Books for Youngsters . The German version A tree blooms in November 1981 received the Evangelical Book Prize . This book has novel-like features, contains fictional people and actions, deviates in many details from their earlier presentation and can therefore hardly serve as a historical source .

Awards and honors

Works

  • Keep watch in the dark . Wedel in Holstein: Alster-Verlag 1947, licensed edition Berlin: Neues Leben 1948; Danish: Copenhagen: Hasselbach 1947; Norwegian: Bergen: Grieg 1947, 3rd edition Oslo: Tiden 1969
  • A tree blooms in November. Report from the years of the Second World War. Hamburg, Hoffmann and Campe 1974 (later Bergisch Gladbach: Lübbe 1992, ISBN 3-404-61228-0 . New edition Zurich: Kopernikus 2005, ISBN 3-9520400-0-2 )

literature

  • Christoph Bitterberg: "... that the activities of the clergy mentioned only have to extend to pure pastoral care." The Norwegian seaman's pastors and Hiltgunt Zassenhaus as reflected in the German penal files. In: Help or Trade? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution. Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , pp. 109–120 (Contributions to the history of National Socialist persecution in Northern Germany, no. 10)
  • Herbert Diercks : The invisible helpers. Hiltgunt Zassenhaus from Hamburg and the Norwegian seaman's mission on duty for the Norwegians imprisoned in Fuhlsbüttel from 1940–1945. In: Help or Trade? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution. Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , pp. 121–140 (Contributions to the history of National Socialist persecution in Northern Germany, no. 10)

Movie

  • Peter Morley : Women of Courage , four-part documentary series, Great Britain, 1980, episode It Mattered to Me , 52 minutes.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sune Persson: Last Minute Salvation. Folke Bernadotte and the liberation of thousands of concentration camp prisoners through the "White Buses" campaign (Swedish first edition 2002) Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-938844-19-9 , p. 254.
  2. ^ Herbert Diercks: The invisible helpers. Hiltgunt Zassenhaus from Hamburg and the Norwegian seaman's mission on duty for the Norwegians imprisoned in Fuhlsbüttel from 1940–1945. In: Help or trade? ... Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , pp. 121–122.
  3. ↑ Honorary Senators of the University of Hamburg ( Memento of the original dated December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-hamburg.de
  4. ↑ Films on Women Rescuers During World War II to Screen at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ( Memento of the original from August 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at ushmm.org, accessed June 9, 2016  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ushmm.org
personal data
SURNAME Zassenhaus, Hiltgunt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zassenhaus, Hiltgunt Margret; Zassenhaus, H. Margret
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American doctor and author
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 2004
Place of death Baltimore