On May 19, 2026, the town of Ueckermünde in Western Pomerania commemorated some of the victims of the Nazi regime by laying Stolpersteine (stumbling stones). Among others, a Stolperstein (stumbling stone) for Jehovah’s Witness Martha Gehrke was dedicated at Bornbruchweg 3 – the 500th to commemorate men and women from the Christian religious community.
Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) are of outstanding importance for the culture of remembrance of the Nazi persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses. So far, in addition to hundreds of Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) in Germany, 38 have been laid in Austria, two in the Czech Republic and one in the Netherlands for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Demnig’s first legal Stumbling Stones were laid for the brothers Johann and Matthias Nobis in Austria on July 19, 1997.
Many of the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) laid for Jehovah’s Witnesses commemorate women and point out that female Witnesses played a special role in the persecution history of this group of victims. Until the outbreak of war in 1939, they made up the largest group of prisoners in the women’s concentration camps.
Martha Gehrke was sentenced to prison for the first time in 1936 for practicing her faith. She was arrested again in April 1937. The Jehovah’s Witness served a six-month prison sentence in Greifswald. She was then transferred to the Lichtenburg concentration camp, and from there to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in May 1939. Prisoner number 183 shows that she was one of the first women prisoners in the newly established concentration camp. In 1939, 40 percent of all women prisoners in Ravensbrück were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Martha Gehrke was liberated in 1945. She fled to West Berlin in 1950, after the Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in the GDR, and thus escaped re-arrest.
The story of Martha Gehrke was researched by pupils from the “War Graves” working group at the Europaschule in Rövershagen. As part of a project funded by the “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” Foundation, they are publishing the results of their research on the “Biographies of Persecuted Jehovah’s Witnesses” website, which will go online in mid-June – shortly before the memorial to the Jehovah’s Witnesses persecuted and murdered under National Socialism, which was approved by the German Bundestag in 2023, is handed over to the public on June 24, 2026.
More information:
Ueckermünde: Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) for victims of National Socialism | tagesschau.de
