Assia Esther Wevill (15 May 1927 – 23 March 1969)

 

Assia Esther Wevill (15 May 1927 – 23 March 1969) was a German woman who escaped the Nazis at the beginning of World War II and emigrated to Palestine, then later the United Kingdom, where she had a relationship with the English poet Ted Hughes. She killed herself and their four-year-old daughter Shura using a gas oven, similar to Hughes's first wife Sylvia Plath's suicide, six years earlier. On 23 March 1969, Assia killed herself and four-year-old Shura in their London home at 3 Okeover Manor, Clapham Common. She had first sealed the kitchen door and window, then dissolved sleeping pills in a glass of water, chased with whisky, and then turned on the gas stove. She and Shura were found by the family's German au pair, Else Ludwig, lying together on a mattress in the kitchen.