Mary Pünjer

Mary Pünjer (24 August 1904 – 28 May 1942) was a German lesbian Jew, who was murdered in the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre during the Holocaust.

Life Mary Kümmermann was born on 24 August 1904 in Wandsbek to a Jewish family. After graduating from the Wandsbeker Lyzeum high school in 1922, Mary initially worked as a saleswoman in her parents' women's clothing store. In 1929 she married a schoolfriend, Fritz Pünjer, who was not Jewish. The camp's entry register described her as “anti-social” and, as an addendum - “a very active lesbian”. The fact that she was Jewish was not included in these records. Between October 1940 and March 1941, Mary Pünjer was interrogated several times by the Hamburg Police Department for Sexual Offenses. He was also involved in the Nazi murders of the T4 campaign and the selection of concentration camp prisoners to be murdered in Action 14f13. The timing of Pünjer's repatriation to the camp coincides with the beginning of Action 14f13 in various concentration camps. However, she did not appear on Mennecke's list until his second visit in January 1942.

Remembrance

A stolperstein dedicated to Mary Pünjer is in Hamburg-Wandsbek at Wandsbeker Marktstrasse 57. However, Pünjer was not the only lesbian to be murdered at Ravensbrück: Elli Smula and Margarete Rosenberg arrived there on 30 November 1940, identified as lesbians. In some concentration camps brothels were established to punish lesbian women by raping them. Sex with Jewish women was forbidden on grounds of racial disgrace by the Nazis, but rape was not considered a racial disgrace in concentration camps.