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Felice Schragenheim and Elisabeth "Lilly" Wust

Felice: (March 9, 1922 - March 1945)
Lilly: (November 1, 1913 - March 31, 2006) 

In 1940s war-torn Berlin, Felice Schragenheim, a Jew in hiding, and Lilly Wust, the wife of a German soldier, made an unlikely couple. Through a courtship of love letters and poems, their relationship deepened into living together, co-writing their own marriage contract, and exchanging rings. Buried for decades, their struggle brings to light a unique, complicated, and powerful love story.

*****

This page tells the story of two individuals. Read this introductory essay for an overview of the history of the Nazis' persecution of LGBTQ+ people. 

This essay is written by Pink Triangle Legacies Project' Spring 2024 Intern Julia Sirkin. It is  based on the important research of Erica Fischer. Thank you for your work in preserving queer history. 

Felice Schragenheim and Elisabeth Wust were a unique couple: Felice was a Jew hiding in Berlin, and Elisabeth was the wife of a German soldier. Immortalized in their photographs, poetry, and letters, their story is a complicated one of antifascist defiance, queer awakening, and contradictions.

 

Felice was born in Berlin on March 9, 1922 to a Jewish middle class family. Her parents were both dentists, and she grew up comfortably in Berlin-Tiergarten. Both of her parents died by the time she was 13, leaving her and her sister in the care of their stepmother. A classmate described Felice as “smart, well-read, very alert, athletic, sometimes boldly brazen and wonderfully happy … she had an inner charisma that radiated from her big, light brown and gray-green eyes.”

 

Following Kristallnacht - the Nazis’ nationwide attack on Jewish businesses and synagogues in November 1938 - Felice was barred from finishing her education. Her sister emigrated to London in 1939. From October 1941 to October 1942, she was ordered to work in a bottle cap factory, which temporarily kept her safe from the Nazi deportation of Jews to killing centers in the eastern territories. Despite attempts to emigrate to Palestine, Australia, and the United States, Felice was forced to remain in Germany. She received deportation papers in October 1942, and immediately went into hiding at her friend Inge Wolf’s home.

 

Elisabeth “Lilly” Wust was born in 1913 Berlin-Schmargendorf, where her childhood and adolescence were spent in the wake of World War I and the Great Depression. In 1933, Lilly married Günther Wust, an accountant who later became a recruit  in the German army. They had an adulterous marriage on both sides but had four sons together. Of her children and estranged marriage, Lilly said in 1993, “I accepted it as my fate, and I enjoyed having my children. But the way they were made, that’s another story.” Lilly’s sons qualified her for Germany’s bronze “Mother Cross.” This awarded her a housemaid named Inge Wolf. 

 

Unbeknownst to Lilly, Inge was hiding Felice from the Nazis. When Inge told Felice that Lilly claimed she could “smell a Jew,” Felice insisted that Inge introduce the two. They met at a café in Berlin on November 27, 1942. Lilly was 28; Felice, 20. Felice’s daring request passed without incident - on the contrary, Lilly was enchanted.

 

That winter, with plentiful rations due to her four children, Lilly invited Inge and Felice to stay for dinner on several occasions. As Lilly was an eager hostess, her invitations  quickly expanded to include Felice’s circle of queer women friends. Despite Inge and Felice’s ongoing relationship, Felice slowly began to woo Lilly.

 

Lilly had experienced feelings for women before; she later recalled, “I always had girlfriends, bosom buddies, so to speak… So finally, when I started up with boys, my parents heaved a sigh of relief: Thank God, she has boyfriends!” Reflecting on her relationship with Felice, Lilly said, “I got nothing at all from my men. Men took their pleasure with me and I felt used…. I was built wrong somehow, but I didn’t know that… With Felice it was just totally different… When she kissed me I surrendered to her completely.”

On March 21, Lilly was admitted to the hospital for a jaw infection. Felice visited every day with red roses, and the two began to slip each other love poems and letters. On March 24, Felice wrote to Lilly, “There’s so much I want to give you, with only one thing in mind: You! I want to find stars for us up above –! And do you know why? It’s you I love.” On March 27, Lilly wrote in return, “I want to live, Felice – live – live with you. Tell me that you want to live with me, please tell me that. My heart beats for you, do you now know that?” In their letters, Felice began to call Lilly “Aimée,” meaning “beloved” in French. She also chose the nickname “Jaguar” for herself, perhaps in reference to her fierce protectiveness.

 
With her soldier husband frequently away from home, Lilly and Felice became closer as the war raged on. As the springtime came to Berlin, the two went out in public together, going to cafes, restaurants, and hotels. Due to worsening wartime conditions, Felice moved in with Lilly on May 2. 

 

One day, Lilly confronted Felice about where she went during her “business trips.” Felice finally admitted that she was a Jew who was part of a group that organized escape routes and stole and forged ID cards. Lilly embraced her, and soon, Felice began to bring other members of the group around to Lilly’s home, which was the perfect safe house for them to store materials. 

 

In June 1943, Lilly and Felice wrote a marriage contract, and Lilly filed for divorce from her husband later that summer. On the second of each month, the couple celebrated the anniversary of their first intimacy, and on September 2, 1943 they exchanged rings. On December 27, 1943, Lilly wrote to Felice, “My dearest one, in your white pullover, what do we care for others? We are enough to each other, we need no one but ourselves, but each other we need completely.”

Marriage contract between Elisabeth Wust and Felice Schragenheim, Berlin June 26, 1943. Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Birgit Maurer-Porat

In English, it reads: 

26.6.43
Marriage contract
I will love you without limits,
be faithful to you unconditionally,
ensure order and cleanliness,
work hard for you, the children and me,
be very frugal when necessary,
generous in all things,
trust you!
What belongs to me should belong to you;
I will always be there for you.
Elisabeth Wust, née Kappler

On August 21, 1944, the couple cycled down to the Havel River, where they swam and took self-timer photographs. When they returned home, Gestapo officers were waiting; they detained and interrogated both of them, but only took Felice into custody. That night, Lilly began a diary: “Dear God, protect the girl I love above all else. Give her back to me safe and sound.” She visited Felice as often as she could at the Jewish Hospital, which had been repurposed as a collection camp for Jews. They saw each other for the final time on September 7, 1944. The next day, Felice was deported to Theresienstadt. On September 10, Lilly wrote in her diary, “I’m so worried. Do you think of me? I’ll find a star in the sky that maybe you can see, too, and it will bind our two souls together.”

 

On September 28, Lilly traveled to Theresienstadt in an attempt to see Felice, but was turned away. She sent packages of food and clothing almost daily instead, many of which reached Felice. On October 9, Felice was sent to Auschwitz. A week later, she was forced to march for two weeks to Gross-Rosen, and then to the women’s subcamp at Kurzbach. 

On November 14, Lilly received a letter from Felice: “Do you still love me now that my ears stick out and I have lung troubles? I’m so worried about you. That’s the worst thing about all of this.” Lilly wrote back, “You needn’t worry about me, I’m not nearly as ill as you, not nearly. And if the two of us survive we’ll have to nurse each other back to health, isn’t that so?”

 

As bombings of the city grew worse in early 1945, Lilly took in three middle-aged Jewish women. In her diary on February 9, she wrote, “The poor things. They’re in the same situation as you, my sweet, only they’ve been in it longer. My God, there’s someone I can help again.” On April 13, as Allied forces liberated camps and approached Berlin, she wrote, “When Albrecht sees my crying he always says, ‘Mutti, Aunt Felice is coming back.’ He’s learned how to say ‘Felice.’ You live in the hearts of my/our children. My dearest girl, I have your picture before me. I’m waiting for you. I cannot be without you.”

 

The Kurzbach camp where Felice was imprisoned had been evacuated on January 25, 1945. Two hundred women died on the freezing march to Gross-Rosen. The survivors were put on cattle cars to Bergen-Belsen. Felice was one of the tens of thousands who perished at Bergen-Belsen.  

 

After the war ended, Lilly waited and searched for Felice, and continued to hold out hope for her return. She registered at least two of her elder sons as Jewish at school and they attended synagogue and celebrated some holidays. Her son, Bernd Wust, later said, “Mutti imposed herself, that has to be said. She established contact with some Jewish people or other in Schmargendorf, and joined the Jewish Community. They tolerated her, but blocked any serious efforts on her part to convert.”

 

Lilly fell into depression waiting for Felice’s return. In the spring of 1949, she attempted suicide, but was saved by a friend. Lilly briefly endured an unhappy marriage to a neighbor’s son, Willi Beimling, from April 1950 to December 1953. She withdrew further from society, took odd jobs to make ends meet, and lived largely in poverty. 

 

For her efforts to hide four Jewish women from the Nazis, Lilly was awarded the German Federal Service Cross in 1981, and was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1995 by Yad Vashem. In 1994, she shared her story with author Erica Fischer, who turned it into the book Aimée and Jaguar.  This was later adapted for the screen by Max Färberböck.

 

On March 31, 2006, Lilly passed away at the age of 92 in Berlin.

An undated letter from Lilly to Felice that reads:

Tonight!! Dear Felice, you cannot fathom how much I love you. I am now facing a difficult time. You have to help me to overcome it. And then...then we will be completely happy, then I will only live for you.
And for me! 

An undated letter from Felice [Jaguar] to Lilly that reads:

I love you! 

By the way, I'm in the cellar. 
Your hungry Jaguar.

Sources & Further Reading

Erica Fischer, Aimée & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943, trans. Edna McCown and Allison Brown (Harper Perennial, 2015).

 

Kate Connolly, “‘I still feel her breath,’” The Guardian, June 30, 2001.

 

Margaret Hetherman, “The tragic love story of a Jewish woman and a Nazi soldier’s wife,” The Washington Post, February 14, 2024.

 

Tanja B. Spitzer, “Felice and Lilly—An Uneasy Berlin Love Story,” The National WWII Museum New Orleans, March 8, 2021.


Mary Beth Warner, “Women With Nein Lives,” The Washington Post, September 30, 2000.

PRIMARY SOURCE COLLECTIONS:

Jewish Museum Berlin: Felice Schragenheim

Jewish Museum Berlin: Elisabeth Wust

More PTL Project Resources on Felice & Lilly

Screenshot Felice and Lilly.png
For Citation

Julia Sirkin, "LGBTQ+ Stories from Nazi Germany: Felice Schragenheim and Elisabeth 'Lilly' Wust." (2024) pinktrianglelegacies.org/schragenheim-wust. 

(Updated August 2024)

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