Felice Rahel Schragenheim

#FeliceRahelSchragenheim (March 9, 1922 – December 31, 1944): Born in Berlin in 1922, Schragenheim joined the #Resistance against the Nazis in the late 1930s-early 1940s. She became employed as a house keeper for a Nazi soldier in the 1940s and continued working with the Resistance. It was here, while her employer was away at war, that she fell in love with his wife, #LillyWust, and shared with Wust her true identity as a Jewish-German lesbian. They pursued a clandestine relationship, but moved in together after Wust separated from her husband. They lived and loved together until 1944, when Schragenheim was outed and arrested by the Gestapo. During her entire stay in Schulstrasse transit camp, Wust visited and wrote love letters to Schradenheim. From there she was transferred to Theresienstadt concentration camp, where Wust continued to attempt to visit Schragenheim despite refusals by camp officials, and from there she was sent to Auschwitz. She is believed to have died on New Year’s Eve 1944. Lilly Wust sold her story of the couple’s relationship in the mid-1990s, which was put into the book #AimeeAndJaguar (later made into a movie). Wust later described her relationship with Schragenheim in 2001, saying, “It was the tenderest love you could imagine…. I was fairly experienced with men, but with Felice I reached a far deeper understanding of sex than ever before….There was an immediate attraction, and we flirted outrageously…. I began to feel alive as I never had before….She was my other half, literally my reflection, my mirror image, and for the first time I found love aesthetically beautiful, and so tender….Twice since she left, I’ve felt her breath, and a warm presence next to me. I dream that we will meet again – I live in hope.” Lilly Wust passed away in 2006, and her lover’s name was engraved on her tombstone. Wust never remarried or sought a relationship with another person. #PrideMonth#LGBTQIA#LGBTQIAPride#Pride#LegendsOfPride#YouCannotEraseUs