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Savitri’s Address in Emsdetten, Germany
238 words
Savitri Devi moved into a home that she shared with Katja U. in the town of Emsdetten, which is in the Steinfurt district of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in May of 1953. She completed the manuscript of Pilgrimage during her time there, and also worked on the manuscript of The Lightning and the Sun. In December of 1954 her residence was searched twice by the German police, who were suspicious of her National Socialist beliefs, and Savitri herself was interrogated. She was finally forced to leave Emsdetten in May of 1955.
Below is a scan of the front cover of the official address book for Steinfurt for 1955, as well as the page on which Savitri’s address is listed under her birth name of Maximiani Portas. She is listed as a language teacher, at the address Hembergener Damm 115.
Front cover (JPEG)
Address page (JPEG)
Below is a scan of an archival card that was made in 1987 as part of a “wartime index” compiled in Germany during the 1980s from data obtained from earlier official sources, intended to help families find out about the fate of relatives during the period of the Third Reich, the Second World War, and their aftermath. The card shows when Savitri was registered in Emsdetten during the mid-1950s. The text written in pencil reads, “Aufenthaltserlaubnis beantragt am 18.8.54 b. d. Ausländeramt in Burgsteinfurt,” which means “Residence permit applied for on 18.8.54 at the Aliens’ Office in Burgsteinfurt.”
Front (JPEG)
Back (JPEG)
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For those who can’t read the pencil remark on the register card, it says “Aufenthaltserlaubnis beantragt am 18.8.54 b. d. Ausländeramt in Burgsteinfurt”, meaning “Residence permit applied for on 18.8.54 at the Aliens’ Office in Burgsteinfurt”. <p>
And if I may be so bold as to quote from my own blog:
“In June 1953, Savitri Devi moved from Nusse – in Pilgrimage, she reveals having unsuccessfully tried to earn money there by working in the beetroot fields – to Emsdetten, Westfalia.(2) She probably lived at first with the family of Leokadia „Katja“ Ulmer, according to the plan outlined in Pilgrimage, but there is no specific note of this on her Emsdetten registration form. However, in a letter from July 1954 Savitri gives the Ulmer family’s as her contact address. In August 1954 she moved in with the Miethe family (she mentions their daughter Henriette „Henny“ in Long-Whiskers and the Two-Legged Goddess) on Hembergener or, as it’s officially called, Hemberger Damm 115. This was also where, on 16 December 1954, her room was searched by German police and the manuscript of Pilgrimage confiscated. Sadly, no official documentation of that episode appears to have survived; neither the Emsdetten town archive nor the state archive of North Rhine-Westfalia holds any file on it, and there was no press covering of it either.”
(https://clarissaschnabel.wordpress.com/2022/10/27/savitri-devi-in-niedersachsen/)