Faculty Research: One woman’s story of Nazi resistance

Dr. Melissa Kravetz is publishing a memoir later this year, but the story is not her own.

She has edited The Memoir of Ilse Seger, a firsthand account of the wife of Gerhart Seger, a German politician who opposed the Nazis and was imprisoned immediately after Hitler took power. The subtitle of the book, to be published in December, describes Seger as a wife, mother, hostage and Nazi resister.

"She's one of the very rare, early accounts that we have of a witness to this transition between democracy and dictatorship because her husband was in the Reichstag in the early 1930s," said Kravetz, whose research is focused on the transition from the Weimar Republic to Nazism. "It's a very intriguing story of what an ordinary person does in the face of that. It's very timely, especially as authoritarianism is rising throughout the Western world."

Both Segers survived early Nazi concentration camps. Ilse and her 18-month-old daughter, Renate, were held as hostages in 1934 but released a few months later through her husband's connections. The family came to the United States in 1935.

Ilse wrote a memoir of her experiences in 1970-typed on onion paper-but it was never published. Kravetz, who is co-director of Longwood's minor in women, gender and sexuality studies, worked with Seger's family members, mostly her grandchildren, on publishing the book. She divided it into chapters and added historical context based on her own expertise and further research.

Ilse Seger died in 1979. Renate died a few years ago, and one of her grandchildren is writing the memoir's epilogue.

Kravetz connected with Seger's family through the summer class for K-12 educators she teaches at the Virginia Holocaust Museum. With the Longwood historian's research emphasis on the role of women, Ilse Seger's story was a natural fit. Kravetz previously published a book on women doctors in Germany during the same period.

Historical research is much like a treasure hunt, she said.

"I think every historian's dream is to uncover a great treasure that no one else has seen and bring it to light," she said. "Ilse's story has been sitting around since 1970.

"It feels like I have this secret that I'm now about to share with the world, and I'm pretty excited."