Johanna Krause Twice Persecuted: Surviving in Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany.

Susan Merskey is freelance writer in London, Ontario.

Johanna Krause (1907–2001) was twice persecuted in her lifetime. First, by the Nazis for being a Jew, and second, by the Communists in postwar East Germany. Born into bitter poverty in Dresden, Johanna received little education and worked mostly in factories and shops. In 1933, she came to the defence of a Jewish man being beaten by Brownshirts. For her pains, she was imprisoned for “insulting the Fuhrer.” After a secret wedding in 1935, she and her husband, Max Krause, were arrested for breaking the law forbidding marriage between a Jew and an “Aryan.”

In the years that followed, Johanna endured many atrocities. These included a forced abortion and sterilization, incarceration in several prisons and concentration camps—including Ravensbrück, the notorious women’s camp near Berlin—and a death march.

After the war, Max and Johanna participated enthusiastically in building the new socialist republic of East Germany, but in 1958, Johanna recognized a party official as someone who tried to rape and kill her during the war. She thought that the Communist Party would punish the official, but instead was shocked to find herself subjected to anti-Semitic attacks. She and Max were imprisoned and their business and possessions confiscated. After her release, she was expelled from the Communist Party and remained persona non grata until after the reunification of Germany.

In 1996, Freya Klier made a short film about Johanna. While researching her story, she became aware of the injustice under which her subject still lived. Thanks to her persistence, Johanna’s criminal record from East Germany was finally expunged.

Numerous individuals helped in the preparation of Johanna Krause Twice Persecuted. Most importantly, Christiane Hemker interviewed Johanna, Birgit Michaelis edited the transcribed tapes, and Carolyn Gammon, who met and became friends with Johanna when Freya was making her film, translated the German text into English. The resulting book, which is enhanced by photographs from German archives and documents from Johanna’s own papers, has deservedly brought Johanna’s story to a wider audience through Wilfrid Laurier University Press’s Life Writing series. Recommended.