Yvonne Mewes

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Yvonne Mewes (born December 20, 1900 in Karlsruhe , † January 6, 1945 in Ravensbrück ) was a teacher in Hamburg .

Life and work

Yvonne Mewes graduated from high school and came to Hamburg with her family at the age of 20, where she also studied. Seven years later, at the age of 27, she became a student assistant at the Heilwigschule (now a private school) in Isestrasse. There she taught German, French and English.

In 1938 she was transferred to the public school service at her own request, namely at the Curschmannstrasse school. It was here that she first experienced the constraints of everyday school life under the Nazi regime. After she neither joined the NSDAP nor took part in the Kinderland dispatch, she asked several times to be released from school and finally submitted her resignation on July 15, 1944. This was unsuccessful; the dismissal was rejected out of hand because of a lack of teachers. Due to Mewes' refusal to work, the school authorities turned to Reich Governor Karl Kaufmann with the request to make an example. Her rejection of the NSDAP was justified, among other things, by the fact that a nephew who was close to her was a “ half-Jew ” and so she recognized the discrimination.

On September 7, 1944, she was taken into “ protective custody ” by the Gestapo . On December 23, 1944, she was admitted to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and died there on January 6, 1945 of typhus .

Commemoration

In Hamburg, two stumbling blocks are reminiscent of Mewes. One is at her former place of residence, at Meerweinstrasse 1 in Winterhude, the second at the former school building of the Heilwig school at Isestrasse 146, where she had worked the longest. It was inaugurated on February 27, 2008.

On January 8, 1985, a street in Hamburg-Alsterdorf was named after Mewes. The Yvonne-Mewes-Weg was named at the same time as seven other names in the motif group Persecuted by National Socialism and Victims of Terrorism by a senate resolution. The path is located in a new housing estate, where the other path names can also be found. In the way are simple, small chain of terraced houses and a playground, a sign under the street sign reveals some information about Yvonne Mewes. The road is about 140 meters long and has an 80 ° curve.

Yvonne Mewes' tombstone is in the women's garden at Ohlsdorf cemetery .

  • The stumbling block at her former place of residence at Meerweinstrasse 1

  • The stumbling block at her former workplace, the Heilwig School

  • Street sign of the named way in Hamburg-Alsterdorf

  • Gravestone of Yvonne Mewes in the women's garden at Ohlsdorf cemetery

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Yvonne-Mewes-Weg: 53 ° 36 ′ 58.4 ″  N , 10 ° 0 ′ 22.6 ″  E
  2. ↑ Garden of Women - Women from Politics, Education and Social Services , accessed on January 29, 2009

literature

  • Rita Bake / Brita Reimers: City of Dead Women: the Hamburg cemetery Ohlsdorf in 127 portraits of women. State Center for Political Education, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-930802-56-2 , p. 306.
  • Ursel Hochmuth / Hans-Peter de Lorent : School under the swastika . Hamburger teachers newspaper, Hamburg 1985
  • Ursel Hochmuth , Gertrud Meyer : Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance 1933-1945: Reports and Documents , Röderberg Verlag, Frankfurt / Main, 1969, reprint 1980, ISBN 3-87682-036-7 , p. 277f., P. 284
  • Franklin Kopitzsch / Dirk Brietzke (eds.), Hamburg biography . Volume 2, Christians, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-7672-1366-4 , pp. 286f.
  • Peter Reichel / Harald Schmid: From catastrophe to stumbling block. Hamburg and National Socialism after 1949 . Dölling and Garlitz Verlag, Munich and Hamburg 2005
  • Ulrike Spar: Stumbling blocks in Hamburg-Winterhude Biographical search for traces . State Center for Political Education, Hamburg 2008
  • Beate Meyer: The persecution and murder of Hamburg's Jews 1933–1945 history. Testimony. Memory . State Center for Political Education Hamburg 2006 2nd edition 2007.
  • Rita Bake in collaboration with Wilfried Rottmann: Who is behind this? Hamburg streets that are named after women. State Center for Political Education Hamburg 1996.
  • Rita Bake: Who is behind this? Streets, squares and bridges in Hamburg named after women . State Center for Political Education Hamburg 2003.
  • Detlef Garbe & Kerstin Klingel: Memorials in Hamburg, signposts to the places of remembrance of the years 1933–1945 . Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, State Center for Political Education; On behalf of the Hamburg Parliament and the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg 2008
  • Hildegard Theres: Stumbling Stones in Hamburg-Hamm - Biographical Search for Traces © State Center for Political Education; Hamburg 2008, © Institute for the History of German Jews
  • Astrid Louven / Ursula Pietsch: Stolpersteine ​​in Hamburg-Wandsbek with the forest villages - Biographical search for traces . State Center for Political Education; Hamburg 2008, Institute for the History of German Jews
  • Lutz van Dieck (ed.): Teacher opposition in the Nazi state, biographical reports on the "upright walk" Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 1990, Frankfurter am Main
  • Hamburg State Archives: u. a. the files of the criminal service chamber

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mewes, Yvonne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German teacher and Nazi victim
DATE OF BIRTH 20th December 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1945
Place of death Ravensbrück