- Anna Rosmus
Anna Rosmus, also known as Anna Rosmus-Wenninger, is a German author born in
1960 inPassau ,Bavaria .As a child and adolescent she started developing an interest in
German history , especially that of theThird Reich , as the subject was not very much emphasized at school. She thus started writing an essay addressing the history of her town during the Nazi regime for a national contest while in her teens. Coming from a town that used to praise itself for its alleged resistance to the Nazi regime, Rosmus' efforts were widely welcome by the town's inhabitants. Nevertheless, confronted with the thought of how her native town managed to remain untouched by the war despite its professed opposition to the government, she started digging further into the past. Upon further questioning of Passau's elders, Rosmus came across widespread silence and refusal to provide any additional information.After four years of perseverance and litigation, she was finally granted access to the city archives. What she found was astounding: many of the town leaders had been fully compliant, active members of the
Nazi Party throughout the war, and severalconcentration camp s had been built in and around the city. She used this information to write her first book, "Resistance and Persecution — The Case of Passau 1933-1939", which was published in1983 . Her work caused an unprecedented uproar. Undeterred by threatening mail, she wrote "The Shadow of Mercy", a book focusing on the plight of Passau'sJews during the twentieth century.Her work attracted director
Michael Verhoeven 's attention, who in 1990 directed "Das schreckliche Mädchen " ("The Nasty Girl"), in whichLena Stolze plays Sonja Wegmus, a fictionalized version of Rosmus. She further published two more books, "Wintergreen: Suppressed Murders" and "GI, Go home!", the former dealing with the murder of Soviet soldiers in Passau and the latter with the role American soldiers played in the city.Rosmus and her daughters moved to the
United States after constant harassment and death threats stemming from her own community. In 1996 she was awarded theHeinz Galinski Prize, however, by that time she had fled to the U.S.ee also
*
Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
*Conscience-in-Media Award , 1994 recipient
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
