Ida Siekmann

Ida Siekmann was a German nurse, born on 23 August 1902 at Gorken near Marienwerder in West Prussia, in what is now Górki in Poland. She worked as a nurse in Berlin and lived at Bernauer Strasse 48 in the district of Mitte, a building whose frontage stood in the Soviet sector while the street itself lay in the French sector of West Berlin. Her sister lived a few blocks away in the French sector. She was already a widow by August 1961, though when she was widowed is not known. After East Germany began building the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961, the entrances and windows of her building were being barred, and on the morning of 22 August she threw bedding and belongings into the street and jumped from her third-floor window. She was badly injured and died on the way to Lazarus Hospital, and she is recorded as the first known casualty of the Berlin Wall. She was buried at the Seestrasse cemetery, and a memorial was set up at her building.