Who was Eva Mamlok? Why a Berlin square will bear her name in the future

Berlin’s Kreuzberg district has renamed Blücherplatz to Eva-Mamlok-Platz, marking the recognition of a lesser-known figure in the history of German resistance against the Nazi regime. The renaming took effect on October 16, 2026, and honors Eva Mamlok, a young Jewish woman from Berlin who resisted the National Socialists from her teenage years until her death in a concentration camp. Eva Mamlok was born on May 6, 1918, into a Jewish family that operated a wholesale wine business. Her family was part of the influential Jewish middle class in Berlin during the Weimar Republic. When Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1933, Mamlok was 14 years old and a member of the Socialist Workers’ Youth (SAJ). After the SAJ was suppressed by the National Socialists that same year, she joined the underground resistance movement. According to Inge Berner, the sole survivor of Mamlok’s later resistance group, Mamlok climbed onto the roof of a department store on Blücherplatz as a teenager and painted the slogan “Down with Hitler.” The building, originally called Tietz, was later renamed Hertie following its “Aryanization” under Nazi rule. Mamlok first appeared in official records in November 1934 after participating in a commemoration for socialist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht at Berlin’s Friedrichsfelde Cemetery. Authorities deemed her “hostile toward the state” and placed her in protective custody, a term used to describe detention without trial, until further notice. She was sent to the women’s concentration camp at Moringen in Lower Saxony, where she remained until May 1935. After her release, she continued her anti-Nazi activities, despite the growing risk. She faced persecution both as a political dissident and as a Jew. During this time, she met Pieter Siemsen, a fellow activist, and the two remained together until Siemsen emigrated to Argentina in 1937. A photo of Mamlok, the only known image of her, comes from Siemsen’s private archive. In 1939, Mamlok gave birth to a daughter named Tana. The identity of the child’s father remains unknown. Tana was placed in a Jewish orphanage in Berlin and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942, where she was murdered. Forced to work in a factory in Berlin due to her Jewish heritage, Mamlok encountered other women who opposed the Nazi regime. Together, they formed an informal resistance network known as the “Eva Mamlok Group,” composed of both Jewish and non-Jewish women. Members of the group distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, spread slogans critical of Hitler, and exchanged banned books, including works by authors such as Thomas Mann and Lion Feuchtwanger. The Berlin Central and Regional Library (ZLB), one of Germany’s largest public libraries, is located on the newly renamed Eva-Mamlok-Platz. Cultural researcher Alexandra Weltz-Rombach described Mamlok as a “very remarkable person” whose resistance as a young Jewish woman was especially notable. She emphasized the symbolic significance of the library standing on the site where Mamlok once protested against the regime. Mamlok and members of her group were eventually arrested for their activities. Their fate remains unclear, but their legacy lives on through the renaming of the square and the ongoing efforts of historians and activists dedicated to preserving their memory.