Margarete "Joy" Weisenborn (5 September 1914 in
Essen
Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...
, 2004 in
Heide
Heide (; Holsatian: ''Heid'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) Dithmarschen. Population: 22,000.
The German word ''Heide'' means "heath". In the 15th century four adjoining villages decide ...
) was a German resistance fighter against Nazism as well as a writer and later a singer.
Life
Weisenborn, born Margarethe Shnabel was the daughter Johannes Julius Schnabel who owned a small manufacturing factory in
Wuppertal
Wuppertal (; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, with a population of 355,000. Wuppertal is the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and List of cities in Germany by population, 17th-largest in Germany. It ...
.
As a child, she was completed her education in middle school and never attended high school.
Weisenborns father died when she was in middle school, and the family were forced into poverty, leading her to rebel.
She was sent to a
boarding school
A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...
for difficult children in the Netherlands in 1933, where she trained to be a school teacher.
After school Weisenborn went on a long journey through both France and England, finding work as an
au pair
An au pair (; : au pairs) is a person working for, and living as part of, a homestay, host family. Typically, au pairs take on a share of the family’s responsibility for child care as well as some homemaking, housework, and receive a monetary ...
, while she traveled
and learning the language. While travelling, Weisenborn met
Libertas Haas-Heye and exchanged details.
From 1937 to 1938 Weisenborn worked as private tutor at
Schwerin Castle
Schwerin Castle (, also known as ''Schwerin Palace'', ( or ) is a 19th-century ''Schloss'' built in the historicist style located in the city of Schwerin, the capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state, Germany. It is situated on an island in the ...
in
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg (; ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg, Wismar and Güstrow. ...
.
On 25 January 1941, Weisenborn married Günther Weisenborn.
Arrest
On 26 September 1942, Joy and Günther Weisenborn were arrested. Weisenborn was imprisoned in the women's remand prison at 79 Kantstraße in
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...
from 28 January 1943 and released in April 1943. Günther Weisenborn was sentenced to death by the
Reichskriegsgericht
The Reichskriegsgericht (, RKG; ) was the highest German military law, military court in Germany between 1900 and 1945.
Legal basics and responsibilities
After the Kingdom of Prussia, Prussian-led Unification of Germany, the German Empire with e ...
and sent to Luckau prison, until he was liberated by the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
in 1945.
After World War II
From 1969, after the death of Günther Weisenborn, she lived in Agarone, Switzerland. In old age, when the steps and stairs “on the mountain” were making her life difficult, she decided to move to a shared apartment in Ascona and then finally moved again to Heide, just before her death, so as to be near her son Sebastian.
In July 2017, their son, released a documentary film "Die guten Feinde" (The Good Enemies) that features his parents along with many members of the Rote Kapelle, that attempts to draw a portrait of the group.
Bibliography
*
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weisenborn, Joy
1914 births
2004 deaths
Red Orchestra (espionage)
People from Essen