GRISSMER YVONNE 1925 – 1944
She was born on March 18, 1925 in Strasbourg (67) and grew up in the village of Bischheim (67), where her parents lived.
She is the daughter of Charles Grissmer and his wife Marie Kaufeld.
Single, she lived with her parents at 10 rue de l’étoile in Bischheim.
After the Nazi annexation of Alsace, she had to change her first name (Yvonne being “too French”) to Erika (as part of the forced Germanization of the Alsatian population, all French first names that had no equivalent in German had to be replaced by a Germanic first name from a list of pre-selected names).
On May 5, 1944, she was drafted into the German navy, the Kriegsmarine, and sent as a Marinehelferin to Kiel, a major seaport on the Baltic Sea.
On November 20, 1944, she gives her last news to her parents from Osehhof-Gottenhafen in Poland, and not in Germany as indicated in the file (Gotenhafen = today’s town of Gdynia in Poland).
Her death certificate records the date of November 20, 1944… she was 19 years old.
She almost certainly sank with the ship she was on (during this period, many German ships were sunk by Allied aircraft or Russian submarines along the North Sea and Baltic coasts).
On March 29, 1960, in a statement made to the Schiltigheim gendarmerie (as part of the study of the files of those drafted by the French Ministry of Veterans Affairs), her father declared:
“My daughter Grissmer Yvonne was drafted into the German navy in 1944. Since the date of her departure, she has not returned to our home. Her last letter, dated November 20, 1944, was from Osehhof-Gottenhafen in Germany (Gotenhafen = today the town of Gdynia in Poland). I know that my child was on a boat. She was with a girl from Strasbourg-Robertsau whose name and address I don’t know. That’s all I can tell you about my daughter.
On the same day, the gendarmerie questioned two other witnesses:
Joseph Lehmann, 50, a painter who also lives at 10 rue de l’étoile in Bischheim, declares:
“Grissmer Yvonne was a neighbor. In 1944 she was drafted into the German army. I don’t know what became of her. In any case, she never returned to her father’s home. I can certify that this young girl did not volunteer to serve the German cause and that if she left, it was under duress”.
Charles Erb, 54, town clerk in Bischheim, who said:
“I knew the young Grissmer Yvonne well, who was born on March 18, 1925 in Strasbourg. She was drafted into the German navy in 1944. She never returned to the home of her parents, who live in our commune, at 10 rue de l’étoile. This family always had Francophile feelings”.
On July 7, 1960, the Strasbourg court awarded her the title “MORT POUR LA FRANCE” (“DEAD FOR FRANCE”).
Many thanks to Claude Herold for his research and for sharing the information and documents he found.
Source : dossier AC21P219193/323312AL du Service Historique de la Défense de Caen – Mémoire des Hommes.
