Emmi Handke

Emmi Handke (born Emmi Christoph; 30 September 1902 – 17 January 1994) was a German Communist party activist. Following the war she worked on the Committee of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp survivors ("Komitee der Ravensbrücker"), later serving for many years as the General Secretary of the International Ravensbrück Concentration Camp Committee.

She worked with the powerful Party Central Committee of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) though she was never herself a member of it. She was, however, a member of the East German national parliament ("Volkskammer") between 1958 and 1986. |group="n"

Régime change arrived in January 1933 and the new government lost little time in imposing one-party dictatorship, one effect of which was to make political activity (except in support of the Nazi party) illegal. Emmi's husband was one of a large number of left-wing activists arrested in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933. She herself was arrested later in 1933 for "illegal party-political activity", and in 1934 sentenced to six years in prison for "preparing high treason" ("Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat").

She worked as a servant at the home of von Bodmann till May 1945 when war ended, her employer killed himself, and Emmi Thoma returned home to Berlin. The part of Germany surrounding Berlin now found itself administered as the Soviet occupation zone. Between 1945 and 1956 she worked for the Party Executive ("Partei Vorstand") which in due course became the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands / SED). The SED itself was founded in April 1946 as a more broadly based replacement, at least within the Soviet occupation zone, for the Communist Party. while also remaining energetic in her commitment to the DFD.

Awards and honours

1955 Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze 1959 Clara Zetkin Medal 1962 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver 1967 Patriotic Order of Merit in gold 1972 Patriotic Order of Merit gold clasp 1977 Order of Karl Marx 1982 Star of People's Friendship in silver 1987 Star of People's Friendship in gold