Bodies VIII: Marta Husemann
These drawings made from Gestapo photographs a young woman interrogated at Gestapo headquarters in Berlin in 1942.
I made these after I visited Berlin in 2008. It is an amazing city of contrasts and history. On the surface very cool and hip, laid back and used to living off Western largesse. Deeper down there are many visceral reminders of its history. The young woman, Marta Husemann, in the photo at the site of Gestapo Zentrale at Prince Albrecht Street, 8 looked like a young Berliner in the 21st century except she was about to undergo Gestapo interrogation.
The woman is Marta Husemann. She was born in Berlin in 1913. She and her husband Walter Husemann were active members of a wide resistance network dubbed the 'Red Orchestra' by the Gestapo when it was broken in 1942. Over 50 of the network were murdered by the Nazi regime.
Marta Husemann was arrested at the age of 29 on September 19, 1942, sentenced to four years' imprisonment and liberated from Leipzig-Kleinmeusdorf Women's Prison in 1945. She died in 1960.
My thanks to Johannes Tuchel, Director at the excellent The German Resistance Memorial Centre for this information and the photographs at the bottom of this page.
