Schiemann Elisabeth

Elisabeth Schiemann Elisabeth Schiemann (born 1881) was a scientist specializing in genetics and botany and a member of the Protestant church. When the Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche) was established to protect Protestantism’s ecclesiastical integrity in the Third Reich, Schiemann became an active member of that church. Despite the Confessing Church’s dissent against the Nazi movement, its members were more restrained about openly condemning the persecution of the Jews. Schiemann, an ardent anti-Nazi, called on the church to adopt a proactive attitude. He confronted Martin Niemöller, one of the Confessing Church’s leaders, asking him to not only condemn the persecution of converted Jews but also to denounce Nazi anti-Semitism as a whole. “How close are we to mentally acquiescing to the slogan ‘Juda Verrecke’ [one of the Nazi slogans, which translates as “Judah croak”] and silently condemning the people of Jewish race—Jews and Christians—to their moral, and even physical destruction,” she wrote to Niemöller in 1936. In the late 1930s Nazi Germany adopted a policy of forcing its Jews to emigrate, leaving their property behind. Witnessing the brutal pressure exerted on the Jews, and the terrible suffering, Schiemann did not remain silent. On December 6, 1938, she sent a written complaint to Count Schwerin von Krosigk, the Minister of Finance, complaining about the conditions in the offices where Jews had to apply for their emigration: “Thousands of Germans of Jewish origin want to emigrate. Hundreds of mothers and wives, whose sons and husbands are in concentration camps, struggle to get the necessary documents. . . . These poor, helpless people, whom we condemned to losing their homeland, . . . are being abused. Having chosen the most unsuitable office, where numerous old and sick people . . . and young people who are practically children have to gather, Mr. Minister, is appalling.” When the Jews began to be deported to the east in autumn 1941, Schiemann helped sisters Valery and Andrea Wolfenstein to evade deportation. She put them in touch with Ester and Hans Seidel, her friends who were moving to Munich. Thanks to this the two sisters were smuggled to the south of Germany, where they were hidden by the Seidels and others. On December 16, 2014, Yad Vashem recognized Elisabeth Schiemann as Righteous Among the Nations.