On September 25, 2024, a Stolperstein (stumbling stone) will be laid in Schwerin in memory of Jehovah’s Witness Emma Tiesel. This is the first time that the state capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has commemorated a member of the religious community who was persecuted under National Socialism.
The Bible Students were already active in Schwerin before the First World War and their congregation was the largest in what was then Mecklenburg, with around 120 people in the 1920s. After being banned by the National Socialists in 1933, the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Schwerin moved their religious activities into illegality. Emma Tiesel took on the role of the responsible “group servant”. Meetings were held in her family home and she was also the regional contact point for the religious community’s literature printed abroad and smuggled across the border into the German Reich.
Following an arrest operation, twelve Jehovah’s Witnesses were tried by the Schwerin Special Court on March 1, 1937. Emma Tiesel was sentenced to nine months in prison. According to her criminal record, she was “considered a particularly zealous (Bible Student) and violated the ban by holding the meeting and accepting the literature.” She served her sentence in Dreibergen-Bützow and Schönberg prisons. In Dreibergen-Bützow, she had reported to the doctor because of a sore throat, whereupon she was given a glass of liquid to gargle with. The liquid cauterized her mouth and oesophagus – whether this was accidental or intentional is unclear. Due to her state of health, she was released from prison on December 30, 1937. Emma Tiesel suffered from the consequences of the chemical burn until the end of her life.
After the end of the Second World War, freedom of worship in East Germany lasted only a short time. At the end of August 1950, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned again in the GDR, combined with an arrest campaign and a wave of trials in which many men and women were sentenced to prison. Emma Tiesel received a private warning about her imminent arrest in September 1950. She immediately left her home with her daughter and fled to West Berlin. 30 minutes later, the apartment was occupied by the State Security in order to arrest the occupants on their return. Her husband August Tiesel hid for a few more days, but then also fled to West Berlin. Once there as refugees, the family had to build a new life for themselves.
On September 25, 2024, at around 3 p.m., the Stolperstein for Emma Tiesel will be laid in Schwerin, at Heinrich-Mann-Straße 6, in the presence of family members. At 5 p.m. there will also be a central memorial event on the south bank of Schwerin’s Pfaffenteich pond to mark the laying of this year’s Stumbling Stones in Schwerin.
