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Yvonne Mewes
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Yvonne Mewes * 1900

Isestraße 146 vor Schule (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

KZ Ravensbrück
ermordet 06.01.1945

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Yvonne Mewes, born on 22 Dec. 1900 in Karlsruhe, died on 6 Jan. 1945 in the Ravensbrück concentration camp

Yvonne Mewes came from an educated middle-class family. She was the oldest of four daughters of the married couple Dr. Wilhelm Mewes and Hermine Mewes. Wilhelm Mewes was a dentist, having obtained his high school graduation certificate (Abitur) at the Academic School of Johanneum High School (Gelehrtenschule Johanneum) in Hamburg, and his grandson Harry relates that he read a lot, including works written in Latin.

Yvonne Mewes was born in Karlsruhe. Until 1919, the family lived in the Alsatian city of Strasbourg. In connection with the effects of the Treaty of Versailles, as Harry Mewes wrote, they left Alsace "as patriotic Germans” and moved to Hamburg. There they resided in a villa at Grindelberg 42. Wilhelm Mewes practiced dentistry on the second floor and had a small lab. His wife or his daughters lent him a hand.

From 1920 to 1925, Yvonne Mewes studied philology in Hamburg and Munich. She passed the state examination in 1925 and the examination qualifying her for the teaching profession (Lehramtsprüfung) in 1927.

Her younger sister Gertrude, born in 1904, completed an apprenticeship with a milliner. She fell in love with Imre Szanto, a young Hungarian of Jewish descent, a businessman and son of a lawyer. When Gertrude Mewes became pregnant, his parents did not allow him to marry her. They gave as reasons his young age and the fact that the union would be "outside of his religion.” In 1923, Harry was born as an illegitimate child. He grew up at the home of his grandparents and aunts. He had a close relationship to his Aunt Yvonne.

In 1928, Yvonne Mewes got a teaching position at the Heilwig School, which was still private and Lutheran at the time. She taught English and French.

Her home was the venue of a regular "ladies’ Italian circle” ("Italienisches Kränzchen”). The gathering had developed from the Italian lectures given by Dr. Meriggi, who was considered "anti-Fascist.” Over the course of time, the conversations became political, participants reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf. One female participant wanted to exclude a woman of Jewish descent but Yvonne Mewes spoke up for her being able to remain, and eventually, the other woman left the circle.

Starting in 1933, Yvonne Mewes came under pressure at school. She was expected to join the National Socialist Party. Refusing to do so, she did not even try to conceal her aversion to the Nazi regime and its ideology. This attitude resulted in her not being promoted to qualified high school teacher (Studienrätin) but remaining a probationary high school teacher (Studienassessorin). One of her former students, Ursula Randt, writes that she had been "an outstanding French teacher.” In order to counter the growing pressure in some way, Yvonne Mewes undertook long bicycle trips, thus also affording her nephew some respite from the strain of his situation as a "Jewish crossbreed of the first degree” ("Mischling 1. Grades”) at the Johanneum high school. She also took an interest in the fate of the other Jewish or "half-Jewish” children at her nephew’s school, and she was outraged at the book burnings in 1933 and at the November Pogrom of 1938 ("Reichskristallnacht”).

In 1938, Yvonne Mewes was accepted into the civil service at her own request. She taught at the school on Curschmannstrasse. However, during the war years she refused to participate in the Nazi evacuation scheme for children (Kinderlandverschickung), arguing that she would then no longer be able to conduct her classes as she saw fit, instead being under the control of the Hitler Youth. As a consequence of this refusal, she was transferred to the Caspar-Voght School and in 1942 back to Heilwig School, which had become a public institution by then.

The principal of Heilwig School, Dr. Hans Lüthje, wrote the following about Yvonne Mewes in a report to the school board dated 4 June 1943: "A person loving truth to the point of fanaticism, who does not recognize and is unwilling to recognize any bond, recklessly resisting anything that looks like compulsion, digging in her heels with all her might against the necessary requirements of the community. All told, she is the prototype of an individualist, stuck on her ideas, difficult to put right, if at all, and barely receptive to other thought … In her obsession to evade any ties, Mewes has also not joined the National Socialist Party.”

At the end of July 1943, her apartment on Meerweinstrasse was destroyed by bombing raids, her library and her literary texts, foundations of her professional career, were destroyed by fire. She left Hamburg and, together with her parents, found accommodation with her youngest sister in [the Bavarian city of] Passau. There, Yvonne Mewes began teaching again, hoping for the Hamburg school board to grant her permission to stay in Passau. Going through the proper channels, she sent her request to Principal Hans Lüthje, who forwarded it to the school board with a cover letter dated 4 Sept. 1943. In this letter, he quoted his previous letter to Yvonne Mewes, stating that he had pointed out that teachers were forbidden from finding a position themselves, and that he had proposed to her different options: She could either resign from the teaching post [in the civil service], return to Hamburg "and do so immediately,” stay in Passau and teach at the boys’ school, or teach Hamburg school children in Passau.

After the loss of her apartment, Yvonne Mewes had in Passau a place to stay, a position at a boys’ school, and she lived near her sister and her sister’s family, hoping to be able to stay in this new-found life; but the school board turned down her request. She received orders to return to Hamburg by 20 Jan. 1944 and teach. She did not have accommodation there anymore. The written promise that she would be able to stay in the night duty room at the Heilwig School for the time being was not kept. Harry Mewes Santo: "The Walddörfer School for girls, to which she was to report, had no use for her. Angry at having been uprooted for nothing, only to start work at a school that did not need her, she nevertheless obeyed the order by the school board to commence service at the home for evacuated children (Kinderlandverschickungsheim) of the Heilwig School in Wittstock/Dosse.”

Her former colleague, Anni Kuchel, remembered in 1985 that Principal Lüthje tried hard to "help” Yvonne Mewes, saying that she would "be left alone by Nazism” if she taught in Wittstock. Anni Kuchel continued to relate that he had found accommodation for her where she was able to live on her own, making an effort "to calm the education authority.” Yvonne Mewes suffered because of the circumstances and sought treatment from a neurologist. However, she did not request a medical certificate confirming that she was unfit to work.

Ursula Randt remembers that her teacher endured her stay in Wittstock only "with great reluctance.” She described a situation in the early summer of 1944. It took place during French class at the Hitler Youth home. The windows were wide open and the local Wittstock Hitler Youth had reported for duty outside, with loud commands reverberating. "Suddenly, Yvonne Mewes wheeled around, banged the windows shut and then, turning to us, said angrily: This is absolutely unbearable! It is simply impossible to teach amidst the bellowing of these so-called leaders!”

From the sources, one cannot tell exactly whether Yvonne Mewes departed abruptly, as a former student thought to have observed, or whether she simply did not return to Wittstock after a stay in Hamburg.

On 15 July 1944, she wrote her resignation letter from school service. She informed her family that the strain on her nerves was too much. Her letter ended with the words quoted by her nephew Harry Mewes Santo in his autobiography: "I have undertaken all efforts to be released from my previous service by legal means. I did not succeed and I have the impression that the board for its part is waiting for me to put myself in the wrong. If I do so with this resignation, it is an act of desperation on my part, for I cannot reconcile with my conscience to fail in an area in which I was able to accomplish something in the past.” She was interrogated several times at the school board offices. The resignation was not a criminal offense. Since the school board wished to use the matter as a warning example, Reich Governor (Reichsstatthalter) Karl Kaufmann was asked to step in. Only refusal to participate in labor duties would have been liable for legal proceedings. Yvonne Mewes did not walk into that trap, obeying the order to work at the mending shop of the Nazi Women’s League (NS-Frauenschaft). As a result, the school board transferred the "Mewes case” to the Gestapo. What weighed heavily in connection with this course of action was the report by the school principal dated 4 June 1943.

When Yvonne Mewes did not return from [an appointment at] the board on 7 Sept. 1944, her nephew, having inquired by phone, learned that his aunt had been taken into "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) by the Gestapo and was in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. Every second Saturday, he took a parcel for her to the prison and handed it over. He was not allowed to see her and he did not get any answers to his questions.

"Three months have already passed since Yvonne’s arrest and we do not see any progress at all. I have contacted everyone at her school, the school board, and the court who might be able to exert any influence whatsoever on her case, asking them to put in a good word for her. To my amazement, Mr. Heinz, the prosecuting attorney, told me that the court had already suspended the proceedings against Yvonne some time ago due to lack of grounds for a conviction. This may sound encouraging but so far, it has not resulted in her release. On the contrary, I have heard that certain people at the school board have recommended that she be sent to a reeducation camp to teach her obedience.”

During a conversation at the school board one week before Christmas of 1944, the person he talked to admitted being worried about the prolonged imprisonment as well. The school board, for its part, had applied two months prior to have her transferred to a "reeducation camp of the employment office.” The person said that he would suggest to the Reich Governor to take care of the matter personally.

The hope for a speedy release was bitterly disappointed. On 25 Dec. 1944, Harry Mewes Santo learned that Yvonne Mewes was no longer in Fuhlsbüttel. The response to his question in this regard was merely the instruction to turn to the Gestapo. However, that seemed too risky to him in light of his situation as a "Jewish crossbreed of the first degree.”

The uncertainty ended in January, when the mail carrier delivered to her half sisters in Altona the urn containing Yvonne Mewes’ ashes. The enclosed death certificate issued by the Ravensbrück records office indicated as the cause of death "cardiac insufficiency.”

In 1950, a trial before a Jury Court (Schwurgericht) took place against Dr. Hasso von Wedel and Prof. Dr. Ernst Schrewe, the former heads of the Hamburg School Board. The proceedings lasted eleven days, with school principal Lüthje summoned as a witness. The trial ended with acquittals. Ernst Schrewe was acquitted because no suspicion of an offense could be established. Hasso von Wedel was acquitted because according to the court’s findings he had acted in a state of "extra-statutory necessity” ("übergesetzlicher Notstand”). According to him, he had intended Yvonne Mewes to be taken to a labor reeducation camp, though writing "concentration camp.”

In 1953, the appeal by the public prosecutor was followed by the second trial against Hasso von Wedel. A witness who was detained with Yvonne Mewes in the Fuhlsbüttel Gestapo prison testified that it was "not” possible for her to be "insincere.” Von Wedel argued that he felt, due to her "obstinacy, compelled to make an example.” The sentence was eight months in prison for von Wedel.

Today the gravestone for Yvonne Mewes is located in the Garten der Frauen ("Garden of Women”) at the Ohlsdorf cemetery.

Author(s): Stolperstein-Initiative Hamburg-Winterhude

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.



On 27 Feb. 2008, in connection with the festivities marking the 125th anniversary of the Heilwig School, a Stolperstein was laid for Yvonne Mewes in front of the place where she used to work at Isestrasse 146. On this occasion, teachers Rotraut Bulle and Gunda Pohlmann-Hoof spoke to students gathered for a celebration. The wording of their address is reproduced here in a considerably shortened version because it would repeat much of what has already been portrayed in the detailed biography.

"We stand here in front of the old school building constructed in 1912 by the female founders of the Heilwig School as a Protestant private school for girls.

In 1927, Yvonne Mewes started her teaching career here in the subjects of German, English, and French. She was among a group of young colleagues that stood out considerably from the older ladies around female principal Emma Kreusler. Yvonne Mewes would on occasion come to school wearing a tennis outfit, and she loved hiking, cycling trips, and traveling. She was attractive and kept up with the latest fashions. Her classes were considered interesting and demanding and her French class was praised as "exceptional” in one instance when the school inspector sat in. She maintained her opinions with a distinctive sense of independence. Among students she was deemed a strict but also a popular teacher.

… All the more cutting must have seemed to Yvonne Mewes the Nazis’ assumption of power on 30 Jan. 1933.

She stayed at the Heilwig School until 1938. However, when this school came under public control but was nevertheless deprived of the right to administer a fully valid high school graduation exam, Yvonne Mewes changed to the public high school on Curschmannstrasse, where she hoped to better maintain the academic standards she had regarding her work. As at the Heilwig School, so it was at the institution on Curschmannstrasse: The students and colleagues appreciated her teaching very much. They also sensed her opposition to the National Socialist system.

… 1942 – the first large-scale air raids on Hamburg took place that summer and regular school lessons became increasingly less feasible … evacuations of children from aerial bombing were being organized … Yvonne Mewes refused to teach under conditions of mounting influence by the Hitler youth and the Nazi party.

At the end of July 1943, the major bombing raids of "Operation Gomorrah” occurred, resulting in more than 30,000 fatalities. Yvonne Mewes herself and her family stayed alive but both her parental home and her own apartment on Meerweinstrasse were completely destroyed and thus her refuge and working space, to her the basis of her professional activity at school.

After this loss, she and her parents found accommodation with a sister in [Bavarian] Passau … However, the Hamburg school board did not permit her to stay in Passau and summoned her back to Hamburg, even though it was not clear initially where she was needed. As an interim solution, she returned to the Heilwig School in Feb. 1944, taking part in the evacuation of children to Wittstock on 1 Mar. 1944.

On 15 July 1944, she handed in her resignation to the school board, writing by way of explanation, "I have tried my best to convince you that under these circumstances I cannot longer be the kind of teacher I would need to be in order to remain true to myself. If my resignation is interpreted as a "hostile act,” so be it. It may give the school board the long-awaited opportunity to punish me for my independence which has been a thorn in its side for so long.”
This indeed marked … the beginning of fierce persecution … Shortly before Christmas of 1944, she was taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Under the inconceivably dreadful conditions of this camp, she broke down and perished on 6 Jan. 1945.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Ingeborg Brusberg

Quellen: Harry Mewes Santo, Vom Dritten Reich zur Neuen Welt, Autobiographie (unveröffentlicht, liegt als CD vor); Harry Mewes Santo, Bericht aus New York (wahrscheinlich geschrieben 1945/46); Exponate in der Ausstellung "Die Heilwigschule im ,Dritten Reich’ und ihr Neuaufbau nach 1945" vom 21.1. bis 14.2.2007; Aufzeichnungen von Frau Hagedorn, Aufzeichnung von Dr. Ursula Randt, Bericht des Schulleiters Dr. Hans Lüthje vom 4.6.1943, Begleitschreiben des Schulleiters Dr. Hans Lüthje vom 4.9.1943; Ursel Hochmuth, Hans-Peter de Lorent, Schule unterm Hakenkreuz, Hamburg 1985; Reiner Lehberger, Kinderlandverschickung: "Fürsorgliche Aktion" oder "Formationserziehung", in: R. Lehberger, H.-P. de Lorent (Hrsg.), "Die Fahne hoch", Schulpolitik und Schulalltag in Hamburg unterm Hakenkreuz, Hamburg 1986, S. 370–381; Rita Bake, Brita Reimers, Stadt der toten Frauen, Hamburg 1997, S. 307f; Brief von Anni Kuchel vom 4.6.1985; Edith Oppens, "Sich selber treu", in "Die Welt", 29.8.1950; "Hamburger Abendblatt", Nr. 165, S. 3 vom 18./19. Juli 1998.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Recherche und Quellen.

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