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Traute Lafrenz (born May 3, 1919 in Hamburg , married Lafrenz-Page ) is a German doctor living in South Carolina . In the resistance against National Socialism she was involved in the activities of the Hamburg and Munich White Rose . It played a central role as a link between the separate groups.

Life

Traute Lafrenz switched from the Hamburg convent school to the Lichtwark school at the age of 14 . She belonged to the class of teacher steel Erna that even after the seizure of power of the Nazis taught in 1933 nor in the sense of freedom and artistic tradition of reform school, was demoted until Easter 1935th In retrospect, Lafrenz described their lessons as "a gift for life". When the coeducation at the Lichtwarkschule was canceled in 1937 , Lafrenz returned to the convent school, where she passed the matriculation examination at Easter 1938 . After completing the Reich Labor Service (RAD), she and her classmate Margaretha Rothe began studying human medicine at Hamburg University in the summer semester of 1939 . After the end of the semester she was used as part of the Reich Labor Service to help harvest in East Pomerania . There she met Alexander Schmorell , whom she met again in the summer semester of 1939 at Hamburg University, where he was enrolled in medicine for that semester.

In May 1941, Traute Lafrenz moved to the University of Munich , where he met Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst . She had a love affair with Hans Scholl. She took part in many conversations and discussions at the White Rose, including with Kurt Huber . In the late autumn of 1942 Traute Lafrenz brought the third White Rose leaflet to Hamburg and gave it to her former schoolmate Heinz Kucharski , who distributed it. When Hans and Sophie Scholl laid out the sixth White Rose leaflet at Munich University on February 18, 1943 and were arrested in the process, Traute Lafrenz also became part of the Gestapo's investigations. She was interrogated for the first time by the Gestapo on March 5, 1943. Shortly afterwards, on March 15, 1943, she was arrested, together with Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber, indicted by the “ People's Court ” and sentenced to one year in prison on April 19, 1943 for “complicity”. During the interrogations by the Gestapo, Lafrenz had managed to conceal her actual involvement in the group's activities. After her release from custody on March 14, 1944, she was arrested again two weeks later in the course of the investigation into the "Hamburg branch of the White Rose" and taken to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison in Hamburg. In November 1944 she was transferred to the Cottbus prison , in February 1945 she was transferred from there via the Leipzig-Meusdorf women's prison to the St. Georgen prison in Bayreuth . It was liberated there on April 15, 1945 by the American troops.

In 1947 Lafrenz emigrated to the United States . She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and Joseph's Hospital in San Francisco with a degree in medicine. On March 2, 1949, she married the doctor Vernon Page, with whom she has four children. From 1972 to 1994 she was the director of the Esperanza Special Education School for mentally disabled children in Chicago . After she retired, she and her husband moved to South Carolina . Vernon Page died in 1995, since then Traute Lafrenz-Page has lived in her former summer house on Yonges Island.

A much-noticed interview with her in the Spiegel from September 21, 2018 turned out to be in parts falsified (see the Claas Relotius case ).

Honors

On November 26, 2007, a month-long exhibition (with loanable boards) was opened for Traute Lafrenz in the White Rose Memorial in Munich .

In 2009 she was awarded the Herbert Weichmann Medal by the Jewish community in Hamburg . The next prize winner was Elsa Werner , who was 98 years old at the time . Traute Lafrenz received the honor on behalf of all members and supporters of the White Rose .

A permanent exhibition was opened in the former Cottbus prison on December 10, 2013 by the Cottbus Human Rights Center , in which the nine women of the Hamburg White Rose , in particular Traute Lafrenz, Margaretha Rothe and Erna Stahl, are honored in one section . The current exhibition of the White Rose Foundation will be shown until May 31, 2019.

In April 2019 she was the last survivor of the White Rose to be awarded the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany . The Order of Merit was presented to her at her place of residence in South Carolina by the German Consul General Heike Fuller on her 100th birthday on May 3rd.

Publications

  • Traute Lafrenz: eyewitness report . In: Inge Scholl : The White Rose (expanded new edition). Frankfurt am Main 1993, pp. 131-138.
  • Susan Benedict, Arthur Caplan, Traute Lafrenz-Page: Duty and 'euthanasia'. The nurses of Meseritz-Obrawalde . In: Nursing Ethics , November 2007, 14 (6), pp. 781-794.

See also

literature

  • Sibylle Bassler: The White Rose. Contemporary witnesses remember. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2006, ISBN 3-498-00648-7
  • Biography about Traute Lafrenz, German Resistance Memorial Center, 1996–2016, in: https://www.gdw-berlin.de/vertiefung/Biografien/habenverzeichnis/Biografie/view-bio/Traute-Lafrez
  • Angela Bottin: Tight time. Traces of displaced and persecuted people at the University of Hamburg. Catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg from February 22 to May 17, 1991. Hamburg Contributions to the History of Science, Volume 11, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-496-00419-3
  • Hendrik van den Bussche : The Hamburg University Medicine under National Socialism , here: Angela Bottin and Hendrik van den Bussche: 7.3 Opposition to the regime and persecution in medical and student circles in Eppendorf . Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin / Hamburg, 2014, ISBN 978-3-496-02870-3 , p. 367 ff.
  • Sandra Dassler, Traute Lafrenz receives the Federal Cross of Merit, “Der Tagesspielgel” from May 3, 2019
  • Jörg Deuter: Not just Lili Marleen. Hans Leip and the Esperantologist Richard Schulz. Nordhausen 2013. ISBN 978-3-88309-794-7 (p. 39–42 Traute Lafrenz's memories of her school days at the Lichtwark School)
  • Herbert Diercks : Freedom lives. Resistance and persecution in Hamburg 1933–1945. Texts, photos and documents. Published by the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in the Hamburg City Hall from January 22 to February 14, 2010
  • Ursel Hochmuth , Gertrud Meyer : Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance 1933-1945 . Second edition. Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt 1980, ISBN 3-87682-036-7
  • Peter Normann Libra: Long live freedom! Sweet Lafrenz and the White Rose. Urachhaus publishing house, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-8251-7809-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ursula Meier (Hrsg.): Erna Stahl - testimonies to her work in the Hamburg school system after 1945 and considerations from her later life. With a contribution: Erna Stahl's attitude in the time of National Socialism . Publishing house Dr. Kovač, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8300-5473-3 , p. 408 (letter to the ed.).
  2. ↑ Angela Bottin: Tight Time. Traces of displaced and persecuted people at the University of Hamburg. Catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg from February 22 to May 17, 1991. Hamburg Contributions to the History of Science, Volume 11, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-496-00419-3 , p. 69
  3. ^ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance 1933-1945. Reports and Documents , Second Edition, Frankfurt 1980, ISBN 3-87682-036-7 , p. 420
  4. ↑ Sibylle Bassler: The White Rose. Contemporary witnesses remember . Reinbek 2006, ISBN 3-498-00648-7 , p. 40
  5. ↑ Last survivors of the "White Rose": Lafrenz interview affected by the Relotius case. In: Spiegel Online. December 20, 2018, accessed December 20, 2018 .
  6. ^ Central Council of Jews in Germany: Herbert Weichmann Medal awarded ; September 14, 2009
  7. ↑ Federal President honors the last survivor of the "White Rose"
personal data
SURNAME Lafrenz, dear
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lafrenz-Page, dear
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg