Sibylle Boden-Gerstner

Sibylle Boden-Gerstner (17 August 1920 – 25 December 2016) was a German costume designer, artist and fashion writer. In 1956 she founded the East German arts and fashion magazine which bore her name, Sibylle, working with the publication as its editor in chief till 1961. She briefly attended the Berlin Arts Academy where she studied painting and illustration. However, the Nazi government came to power at the start of 1933. In 1936 it became impossible for Boden to progress with her studies due to her Jewish background. The couple fell in love and eventually married after the war, in 1945.

Soviet occupation zone/German Democratic Republic The couple's Wilmersdorf home was in the British occupation zone of Berlin, but they later moved to Zeuthen on the south eastern edge of the city, which was administered as part of the Soviet occupation zone till October 1949, when the entire Soviet zone was relaunched as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Sonja Gerstner (1952–1971) was a writer and painter who first showed signs of psychosis when she was 16 and committed suicide three years later. By 1992 it had reached seven editions. It first appeared in West Germany in 1982, complete with a substantial epilogue by Margarete Mitscherlich-Nielsen. The book provides a narrative of her daughter Sonja's illness, treatments and suicide.