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German who gave inside view of Nazi camps dies at 91
Jul 20, 2009, 14:37 GMT
Bonn, Germany - Isa Vermehren, a German entertainer who wrote one of the first post-war accounts of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, has died at 91, her Catholic order of nuns said Monday.
Vermehren, a singer and accordionist at a Berlin nightclub before the War, was thrown into Ravensbrueck concentration camp after her diplomat brother defected.
Her 1946 book, 'A Voyage through the Last Act,' described the humiliations and executions in the camps to readers who were still unwilling to believe the Nazis had been evil.
Vermehren, the daughter of an upper-class lawyer, had performed at Katakombe, a Berlin club where the acts satirized the Nazis. The Gestapo closed it early in the War.
The entire Vermehren family were thrown into concentration camps in revenge when her brother, Erich Vermehren, a German diplomat in Istanbul, defected to Britain with secrets in February 1944. All survived.
She wrote her book, acted in a film and then became an irrepressible nun, using her talents as a stage entertainer to become the big-hearted headmistress of girls' schools and a television personality.
Her boldness, whether she was dealing with a Nazi or a bishop, seemed echoed in Whoopi Goldberg's role in the 1992 movie comedy Sister Act. Vermehren retired in 1983.
The Order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus convent in Bonn said she died in the city on Wednesday last week but this was not made public at the time.
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