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Sunday 9 March 2008

Felice Schragenheim

Felice Rahel Schragenheim was a Jewish resistance fighter during World War II who was born in Berlin on 9th March 1922. She is known for her tragic love affair with hausfrau Lily Wust, who was the wife of a Nazi soldier and mother of four children. The soldier, Gunther, was apparently affair-prone and often away during the war, and when Schragenheim made a pass at Wust in her kitchen one night her life was turned upside-down. The women had met in a train station cafe in 1942 and became friends, but Wust has stated that she hadn't been aware what their friendship was developing into until that night.
Schragenheim then moved in with Wust and lived with the family, and they developed a circle of lesbian friends who would visit. This caused tension when Gunther would occasionally return home roughly every fortnight, eventually leading Lily to ask for a divorce.
Schragenheim was soon arrested and sent to Gross Rosen concentration camp in Poland. When that camp was closed she was transferred to Bergen Belson, though she was never heard from again. It is unclear as to whether she died during the journey or in the new camp. Wust survived the war and apparently still lives in Berlin.
The love story between the two women was immortalised in the novel “Aimee and Jaguar,” named for the couple's nicknames for each other, written by Erica Fischer. The book was later made into a film of the same name by director Max Farberbock in 1999, which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film.

2 comments:

Ray's Cowboy said...

Very interesting.
thanks for sharing

HUGS
Ray

Alex said...

Glad you liked it.