After completing school in 1929, Agneta Richter studied modern languages and art history in Rostock. From 1933, her aversion to National Socialism brought her into conflict with the university. She went on to work in art dealing, until she noticed her clients were trading confiscated art. As a reaction, she set up her own business in Berlin selling engravings. In 1941 she started a family with a stateless Russian businessman.
In January 1943, her former teacher Elisabeth Abegg asked her to take in the hatmaker Hertha Blumenthal, who was in hiding. Agneta von Barkow managed to hide her for six months until she herself was reported to the police by a neighbor in September 1943 for statements “subverting the war effort.” Hertha Blumenthal escaped to safety at the last minute. Agneta von Barkow was sentenced to three and a half years in a penal institution that same month. She was imprisoned in Cottbus and Leipzig until her liberation in April 1945. She was in constant concern over her two children.
After the war she lived in Eichwalde outside Berlin and taught at a commercial college.
Agneta von Barkow, Eichwalde, mid-1950s. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
