Domenica Anita Niehoff (3 August 1945 – 12 February 2009), also known as Domenica, was a German prostitute and activist. She appeared in television shows in the 1990s, where she campaigned for the legalization and regulation of the profession.

Biography

Niehoff was born in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

. Her mother, Anna, fled from her father and raised her children by fortune telling and minor crimes. After her mother was arrested, Niehoff and her brother Amando lived in a Catholic orphanage until she was 14 when she began work as a trainee clerk. When she was 17, she met a

brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub p ...

-owner whom she later married. Her husband committed suicide in 1972. During that year Niehoff started working as a prostitute in the red light district of

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

, St. Pauli and in the

Herbertstraße Herbertstraße (until 1922 ''Heinrichstraße'') is a street in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg, located near the '' Reeperbahn'', which is the main red-light district. It is the only street in the city where it is still possible to find p ...

. Later she opened a studio and became known as a

dominatrix A dominatrix (; ) or femdom is a woman who takes the dominant role in BDSM activities. A dominatrix can be of any sexual orientation, but this does not necessarily limit the genders of her submissive partners. Dominatrices are known for inflic ...

. She appeared on German TV talk shows campaigning for prostitutes and legalisation of the profession from the 1970s onwards. By the 1990s, she had retired from prostitution but stayed in Hamburg's red light district to open a bar. A bar that she owned from 1998 was closed in 2000 when she had unpaid tax bills. In 1991, she co-founded Ragazza e.V to help young prostitutes and in the same period began to help drug addicts. Niehoff died in February 2009 from

lung disease The lungs are the primary organs of the respiratory system in humans and most other animals, including some snails and a small number of fish. In mammals and most other vertebrates, two lungs are located near the backbone on either si ...

and complications from

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level (hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...

in a Hamburg hospital. Niehoff was buried in the ''Garden of Women'' at the

Ohlsdorf Cemetery Ohlsdorf Cemetery (german: Ohlsdorfer Friedhof or (former) ) in the Ohlsdorf quarter of the city of Hamburg, Germany, is the biggest rural cemetery in the world and the fourth-largest cemetery in the world. Most of the people buried at the cemet ...

. She was the first prostitute buried in this area for distinguished women, according to the coordinator of the funeral service. In November 2016, it emerged that a street was to be named after Niehoff in the Altona district of Hamburg.

Literature

* Domenica Niehoff: ''Domenicas Kopfkissenbuch''. Droemer Knaur, München 1989, . * Domenica Niehoff: ''Körper mit Seele. Mein Leben''. Aufgezeichnet von Hans Eppendorfer, Droemer Knaur, München 1994, . * Fee Zschocke (Texte), Andrej Reiser (Fotogr.): ''Domenica und die Herbertstraße''. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1981, . * ''Domenica Portfolio''. Grafikmappe, Schreiber & Leser, München 1993.

Media

''Menschen bei Maischberger''
talkshow on German television

References

External links

* *

Loustal international Art Site: Virtuel Museum
''Domenica Portfolio''
Schreiber&Leser
''Sexarbeit Prostitution – Lebenswelten und Mythen''
Exhibition in ''Museum der Arbeit'', Hamburg {{DEFAULTSORT:Niehoff, Domenica 1945 births 2009 deaths German prostitutes German dominatrices People from Hamburg People from Cologne German autobiographers Burials at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery

Biography

See also

Literature

Media

References

External links