Askold and Vera

Askold Kurov was born on 13 January 1926 in Likino Dulovo near Moscow. When he was 16, he was one of a group of youths who were abducted and brought immediately to Cologne on a train with about 1,000 people in October 1942. Here he was forced to work for ‘Bauhilfe Barackenbau’ and helped build barracks for Cologne citizens who had lost their homes in air raids. At first, he was interned in the ‘forced labourer camp’ on Bensberger Marktweg in Cologne-Dellbrück, later in the Cologne Trade Fair Camp. There he was registered as ‘Ostarbeiter’ (eastern workman) 483. In the exhibition camp he performed smaller acts of sabotage, met up with Nazi opponents and stole food and weapons from parcels. He tried to escape but was arrested in Duisburg and sent to a ‘work education camp’ there. From there, he escaped back to Cologne and initially lived in bombed out houses and then returned to the Trade Fair Camp under a false name. In the Trade Fair Camp he met his future wife Vera Sergeyeva, a 22 year-old woman from Kokand in Uzbekistan, who had been taken to Cologne in the same train as Askold Kurov.

Due to his denunciation of the regime, Askold Kurov was arrested by the Gestapo on 24 December 1944 and was interred in the EL-DE House, the Gestapo prison. In mid- February 1945, he escaped from the EL-DE House in a rather adventurous manner: He was ordered to transport files in the deep cellar. When the Gestapo officer on guard duty returned to the prison to answer a telephone call, Askold Kurov managed to escape through the boiler room that went through both storeys, as the windows were not barred at that place. He managed to flee to the Bergisches Land to reunite with Vera. After the liberation, he escaped from the Displaced Persons Camp into the Soviet occupation zone. After returning to the Soviet union, he first had to spend four months in a work battalion in the Ural region as he was accused of collaboration (cooperation with the Germans): Only in April 1946, Askold Kurov could return to his home. He married Vera and moved to Kokand. Askold Kurov died in Naginsk on 3 July 2000.

Marinette and Christiane

The 25 year-old Frenchwoman Marinette followed her boyfriend to Germany in 1944. She worked as a maid for a German family that was an opponent of the National Socialists. When they were arrested in 1944, Marinette was also taken in, and was interned in cell 3 of the Gestapo prison. At this point in time she was eight months pregnant. She was taken to the Augusterinnen Hospital in the Severinsviertel (a neighbourhood in the south of Cologne) to give birth. Eight days after her daughter Christiane was born on 12 January 1945, Marinette had to return to the Gestapo prison and was separated from her daughter, who was looked after by nuns. She speaks about her experience in particularly detailed and numerous inscriptions. In 1987, French newspapers reported about Marinette’s inscriptions within the scope of research for a film. Marinette’s daughters responded. Christiane was 17 years old when her mother told her that she was born in Cologne but until 1987 she knew nothing about her mother’s detention in the Gestapo prison. Marinette survived, but her memories of the Gestapo prison were so painful that she did not want to talk about it.

Tola

Teofila (called Tola) Turska was born in Baronovicze in Poland on 25 May 1924. At the beginning of 1942, she was arrested during a street raid in Warsaw and was deported to Germany as a forced labourer. Initially, she worked for a farmer in Burscheid and then for Goetze- Werke, a tool factory in Opladen where she operated a turning machine until she had an accident on the job and so there after worked as an interpreter. Tola Turska accidentally came into contact with the ‘Fähnrich-Organisation’, a resistance group made up of Polish sergeants and officers. Her boyfriend Leonard, called Lolek, Kedzierski was a member of this underground organisation. When he was arrested, a photograph of Tola Turska was found. She was arrested, too, on 5 May 1944. After she was interrogated and tortured by the Bethke special force in Brauweiler, Tola first spent several weeks in solitary confinement in cell 4 of the Gestapo prison in the EL-DE House until she was transferred to cell 2 in the end of September 1944, a cell up to 15 women had to share at a time. Later, Tola Turska was brought to the ‘Deutz Trade Fair Camp’ and then to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp and finally, after that was closed down, she was moved to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp until May 1945. Tola survived. After she returned to Poland, she worked as a nurse for a long time. Tola Turska, having been widowed by her husband Knorovska, died 2002 in Sopot.

Mucki

Gertrud Kühlem was born in Cologne on 1 June 1924. Her father, a boiler maker, and her mother, a pharmacist, were active communists. Her father was arrested several times for his resistance work and sent to the Esterwegen Concentration Camp where he was murdered. Gertrud Kühlem had already joined the communist youth organisation ‘Rote Pioniere’ (red pioneers) while still at school. She came in contact with the Bündische Jugend (a free youth movement) via the Friends of Nature movement. There she had the nickname ‘Mucki’. In contrast to the drill and uniformity of the Hitler Youth, the Bündische Jugend tried to live its own lifestyle. They wore colourful clothes, slightly longer hair, sang songs and made trips to the Oberbergisches Land or the Siebengebirge every weekend. Some of the songs were ‘In Junkers Kneipe’, ‘Hohe Tannen’ or ‘Endlose Straßen, gleißende Bahnen’. However, some of the groups also had political debates. Mucki also distributed flyers and took part in campaigns; she was there when slogans such as ‘no weapons for the war’ were written on trains in Cologne- Ehrenfeld. She was arrested in 1941 and 1944 and spent several days in the Gestapo prison in the EL-DE house for several days each time, where she was locked up and brutally interrogated. Afterwards, she was interned in the Brauweiler Concentration Camp for a total of nine months. Also after her arrests she continued to take part in field trips and distributed flyers. ‘Mucki’ also met up with the Ehrenfeld Edelweiss Pirates. She was accidentally passing by and witnessed the public execution of some of them on 10 November 1944. She survived due to lack of evidence against her. ‘Mucki’ lives in Cologne.

Hans

Hans Weinsheimer was born in Cologne on 15August 1928. His father, Johann Weinsheimer, was active in a communist resistance group in Cologne Poll; they printed and distributed flyers. Hans helped to distribute the flyers or put them on trees or shelters. In early 1944, he was arrested in the Deutz shelter and was brought to the Gestapo prison; luckily, he was not carrying flyers at the time he was caught, though. Hans also had connections to the Bündische Jugend and the Edelweiss Pirates. In the end of 1943, he had been arrested for taking part in a field trip organised by the Bündische Jugend and was locked up in the Gestapo prison for two days. In 1944, when he was arrested for the second time, he first spent four to six weeks in the EL-DE House before he was taken to Brauweiler for a few days, where he was interrogated several times; however, the Gestapo officers did not manage to retrieve the information they wanted. Nonetheless, he was brought from Brauweiler to the Butzbach prison, where he remained until shortly before the Americans arrived. All in all, the 15/16 year-old spent almost one year in prison, even though there was no proof that he distributed the flyers. Hans Weinsheimer died in Cologne on 30 May 1990. Hans reports the following about the background of the inscriptions he left on the walls of cell 1: »My mother came every evening, between nine and ten o’clock. She would knock on the window – she knew exactly where I was sitting. And then the others already said: ‘There, Hans, your mother has come.’ You could talk through the window. There were two windows and the one in the front had a hole on the side. Sometimes, my mother also left sandwiches for me. Then it took about ten minutes up to a quarter of an hour, then the door was opened. – ‘Hans Weinsheimer!’ – ‘Yes’ – ‘Your mother was here, she brought you a few sandwiches.’ Then I would get them.«