The Memoir of Ilse Seger (eBook)

Wife, Mother, Hostage, Nazi Resister

Melissa Kravetz (Herausgeber)

Ilse Seger (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2024
266 Seiten
Indiana University Press (Verlag)
978-0-253-07156-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Elisabeth "Ilse" Seger was the wife of Gerhart Heinrich Seger, a German Social Democratic member of the Reichstag from 1930 to 1933. He was reelected for the last time on March 5, 1933, shortly after Hitler came to power. A week later, the Nazis arrested him and held him in "protective custody" for three months in a local prison in Dessau and then sent him to Oranienburg concentration camp for six months, until he escaped to Czechoslovakia.

In The Memoir of Ilse Seger, Ilse tells Gerhart's story, but more importantly, she tells her own story: of her early resistance to the Nazi regime as a political opponent herself; of her solidarity with the Jews during the early years of Nazi persecution; of her defiance of expectations for women at the time; of her time as a hostage alongside her daughter, Renate, in Rosslau concentration camp and how they got out with help from members of Parliament; and, lastly, of her first years living in exile in France and Switzerland as her husband went on an anti-fascist speaking tour in the US. Ilse's story is an incredible contribution to our understanding of gendered political resistance, life in early German concentration camps, and Alltagsgeschichte, or the history of everyday life, by showing what everyday life was like for the wife of a political opponent in Nazi Germany.

The Memoir of Ilse Seger is a gripping narrative of adventure and intrigue about the wartime life of an ordinary, decent woman.

Autor

Melissa Kravetz is Associate Professor of History and Co-Director of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Longwood University. She also teaches at The Alexander Lebenstein Teacher Education Institute at the Virginia Holocaust Museum. She is author of Women Doctors in Weimar and Nazi Germany: Maternalism, Eugenics, and Professional Identity.

Mark Brandt is Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He is Ilse Seger's grandson.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Becoming a Wife and Mother with Nazism on the Rise
2. The Reichstag Fire and Gerhart's Arrest
3. Visiting Oranienburg and Resisting Nazism
4. Under House Arrest
5. A Hostage in Rosslau
6. Meeting Marvis Tate and Leaving Germany
7. Reunited with Gerhart and Living in Exile
8. Another Separation from Gerhart and Planning for America
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.12.2024
• Nachwort: Mark Brandt
• Zusatzinfo: 16 b&w illus.
• Verlagsort: Bloomington
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Schlagworte: Alltagsgeschichte • Anti-Fascism • female émigré • German Social Democrats • Nazi Germany • Oranienburg concentration camp • Political exile • Refugee • Rosslau concentration camp
• ISBN-10: 0-253-07156-9 / 0253071569
• ISBN-13: 978-0-253-07156-9 / 9780253071569