Party, although Apelt's committee later extended its remit to include persecuted left wing leaders from more distant countries, such as the Chilean Luis Corvalán and the South African Nelson Mandela. Between 1949 and 1989 she was a member of the National Council ("Nationalrat") of the National Front. She was a member of the Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime ("Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes " / VVN) between 1947 and 1953, and then of its successor organisation, the League of Antifascists ("Bund der Antifaschistinnen und Antifaschisten" / BdA). Like many long-surviving senior politicians and officials from the German Democratic Republic, Apelt lived out her final years in the "Clara Zetkin Old People's Home" ("Senioreneinrichtung Clara-Zetkin-Heim") in Berlin's Friedrichshagen quarter. She died in Friedrichshagen during the first half of December 2001, although sources differ over her precise date of death. Virtually till the end of her life she was involved in the debate over restitution for former concentration camp inmates who had been forced to work at the Genshagen Daimler-Benz plant. Awards and honours Clara Zetkin Medal (1955) Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver (1956) Banner of Labor (1962) Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold (1967) Order of Karl Marx (1977) Star of People's Friendship in Gold (1982) Fritz Heckert medal References 1902 births 2001 deaths Politicians from Wrocław Politicians from the Province of Silesia Communist Party of Germany politicians Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians Members of the Provisional Volkskammer Members of the 1st Volkskammer Free German Trade Union Federation members Democratic Women's League of Germany members Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime members Prussian politicians Communists in the German Resistance Moringen concentration camp survivors Ravensbrück concentration camp survivors Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver Recipients of the Banner of Labor 20th-century German women