Edeltrud Posiles

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Edeltrud Posiles , née Becher (born June 4, 1916 in Vienna ; † July 23, 2016 there ), was an Austrian Righteous Among the Nations .

Life

Family and meeting with Walter Posiles

Edeltrud Becher came from a middle-class Viennese family. Her father was a businessman in the hardware industry, her mother a housewife . She had a sister, Charlotte Becher (* 1918) , who was two years younger than her . Becher first attended secondary school , but had to drop out of school because her father's economic situation had deteriorated significantly due to the global economic crisis . According to her parents' wish, Becher should become an interior designer . After dropping out of school, Becher attended an acting school in Vienna with the aim of pursuing a career as an actress . Edeltrud Becher, however, had a great interest in art since her youth and she later studied art history and sculpture .

In 1936 (according to other sources: in spring 1937) Edeltrud Becher met Walter Posiles (* 1897), a Czech citizen living in Vienna, at the Café Museum in Vienna . He was Jewish , 19 years older than Edeltrud Becher and ran a wine wholesaler in Vienna. In 1938 Walter Posiles and Edeltrud Becher got engaged and wanted to get married, but marriage was forbidden under the so-called Nuremberg Laws . After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, Walter Posiles fled Austria. Since he had the Czechoslovak citizenship, he first went to Bratislava , then to Prague . Becher and Posiles continued their relationship despite their physical separation. Posiles illegally crossed the border several times; Becher visited him in Bratislava.

In 1938 (according to other sources: autumn 1939) Edeltrud Becher was charged with so-called “racial disgrace”. With the help of Walter Posiles, she fled to Hungary to his sister Grete. A friend of Walter Posiles, Friederike Buchegger , who had personal contacts with the Gestapo , finally brought about the destruction of Becher's Gestapo files through a distant acquaintance. Buchegger informed Becher immediately after the file was removed. At the end of 1940 (according to other sources: 1941) Edeltrud Becher returned to Vienna. After Becher's return, Posiles and Becher continued to maintain contact. Posiles secretly visited Becher twice in Vienna. The twin sisters Lydia Matouschek and Olga Holstein , two of Becher's aunts, provided them with a room in their apartment for eight days each for their encounters .

Rescue acts

In July 1942 Walter Posiles, together with his two brothers Hans and Ludwig, received the order to be deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto . The Posiles brothers then faked suicide , left forged farewell letters, took the night train and fled to Vienna together. There they went into hiding. They were hidden by Edeltrud Becher and her sister Charlotte Becher in the attic apartment of Friedrich Kun [t] z, Charlotte Becher's fiancé, in Vienna's Neubau district , Vienna's 7th district, Neustiftgasse 33. Kun [t] z was a soldier at the front, so the apartment was empty almost the whole time. As soon as Kun [t] z was on vacation, the three brothers had to be accommodated in alternative quarters by the Becher sisters. From then on, Edeltrud Becher lived together in the apartment with Walter Posiles and his two brothers. Edeltrud Becher and her sister Charlotte ensured that the three men were adequately supplied with food. She herself used only part of her food ration, forged coupons and tried to buy unbranded food. By retouching , she reactivated invalid food stamps and in this way was even able to double the food rations in some cases. Edeltrud Becher also received support from loyal friends and acquaintances who collected food stamps; one of them was u. a. the married couple Alois and Josephine Kreiner .

In August 1942 Walter Posiles fell ill with life-threatening pneumonia and pleurisy . With the help of Charlotte Becher, Edeltrud Becher contacted the Jewish doctor Ernst Pick, who was treating Walter Posiles. She had previously found the name Picks by chance on a piece of paper in an air raid box. Shortly after Walter Posiles' recovery, Edeltrud Becher fell ill with scarlet fever . During their hospital stay, Charlotte Becher took over the complete care of the Posiles brothers, although she also had to look after their recently born child.

Edeltrud Becher also "masterfully" "adapted" (forged) an identity card for Walter Posiles, which he was able to present at roadside checks. He had received this pass from Lydia Matouschek, one of Edeltrud's aunts. It was the passport of an artist and friend Matouschek who died in 1940 and which she kept as a souvenir. Like Walter Posiles, the deceased was a Czechoslovak citizen and exempted from military service. With this forged passport, Walter Posiles was able to move largely unmolested in Vienna. Shortly before the end of the war, Edeltrud Becher and Walter Posiles hid in the house of a friend of Walter Posiles, who was a staunch National Socialist but not a party member, in a villa in Perchtoldsdorf . It was there that Becher and Posiles saw the end of the war.

Labor service and resistance

Edeltrud Becher had initially tried for a long time to bypass the labor service for women, but finally reported to the electrical company Pervesler in Kirchengasse in the 7th district of Neubau , which worked for the armaments industry and manufactured headlights for tanks . Posiles could occasionally delay production at the company through sabotage . Edeltrud Becher wrote and produced leaflets against the National Socialists. She, Charlotte Becher and the three Posiles brothers wrote mockery and slogans, which they stuck with rubberized strips on panes, hydrants and other public facilities in heavily frequented places. They also carried out other acts of sabotage, including a. by laying out thumbtacks on important war roads and cutting the telephone lines of the Wehrmacht in Baden near Vienna .

post war period

After the end of the Second World War , Edeltrud Becher and Walter Posiles married in Vienna in 1947. Edeltrud Posiles initially worked for a few years in her husband's wine wholesale business. From 1946 she studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna ; their teachers were u. a. Fritz Wotruba and Herbert Boeckl . In the late 1950s she continued her studies at the Academy of Applied Arts . In 1962 (according to other sources: 1966) the marriage of Walter and Edeltrud Posiles was divorced; however, they remained on friendly terms with each other. From 1967 Posiles worked as a secretary for the International Community Service . She then worked as a librarian at Wiener Städtische Libraries until 1984 . In 1985 she retired . After retirement, she completed a university degree in the subjects of art history and archeology , which she completed with a Magistra . She traveled extensively. At the age of 92 she went alone to India and Nepal and made a scenic flight over the Himalayas .

Posiles lived for many years in Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus , in the 15th district of Vienna. Since 2010 she has lived in the Maimonides Center, the Jewish retirement home in Vienna, in Leopoldstadt , Vienna's 2nd district. She was one of the last Austrian Righteous Among the Nations .

Reception and aftermath

During the Nazi era , Edeltrud Becher was one of the approximately 3,400 people in Austria who helped and supported Jews. Becher was aware of the risk she was taking in her relationship with Walter Posiles and in her rescue operations. However, she never doubted the necessity of her rescue act. She always carried poison in the form of cyanide with her to avoid arrest by suicide if necessary. Becher's active rescue operation spanned a period of a good two and a half years from summer 1942 to the beginning of 1945. Becher built up a network of family members, friends, acquaintances and other helpers who made the various rescue operations possible in the first place. According to Becher's own statements, a total of 12 people had been informed of their rescue operation for Walter Posiles and his brothers.

On October 26, 1978 Edeltrud Posiles was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem .

Posiles has appeared in Austrian and German media as a contemporary witness since the 1980s . 2005 shone ORF 's film Helene Maimann The stars do not fade out, told in the cup personal story and was worked up.

In 2010 she handed over her personal notes, photos, documents on the history of the Posiles family and her own family, detailed documentation of the rescue operation for the three Posiles brothers as well as drawings and sketches from her artistic work to the Vienna City and State Archives . On the occasion of her upcoming 95th birthday in June 2011, an exhibition was held in Vienna in spring 2011 that presented the life of Edeltrud Posiles.

Grave of Edeltrud Posiles at the Vienna Central Cemetery

Posiles was buried in an honorary grave at the Vienna Central Cemetery.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Georg Markus: A librarian from the Vienna libraries is the last living "Righteous Among the Nations" . In: Courier . May 8, 2011, p. 24. On: Haftgrund , May 8, 2011, accessed on July 25, 2016.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h János Böszörmányi: Edeltrud Posiles. Lifesaver from Nazi persecution . Memorial Service Issue 4/2006, accessed on July 25, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b One of the last “righteous”: Edeltrud Posiles dead . orf.at , July 25, 2016, accessed on July 25, 2016.
  4. ↑ a b c d Georg Markus : The last righteous! Kurier , May 8, 2011. Online in the Seniors' Forum for the Young at Heart, contribution from May 7, 2011, accessed on July 25, 2016.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Hanna Ronzheimer: When Hitler goes ex. In: Nu . 29 (3/2007)
  6. ↑ a b racial disgrace . In: Mosche Meisels: The Just Austria - A Documentation of Humanity. Published by the Austrian Embassy in Tel Aviv, 1996, pp. 17–21.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Monika Beckmann, Norbert Freistetter, Heimo Gruber: Righteous Among the Nations: Edeltrud Posiles - 95 years . ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance. 202 / July 2011, accessed on July 25, 2016 (article about Edeltraud Posiles on his 95th birthday).
  8. ^ Israel Gutman , Daniel Fraenkel, Jackob Borut (ed.): Lexicon of the Righteous Among the Nations - Germans and Austrians . Wallstein Verlag , Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-900-7 , p. 349.
  9. ↑ a b George Jahn: Edeltrud Posiles from Vienna hid Jews from the Nazis. (No longer available online.) AP article in The Epoch Times on May 28, 2011, archived from the original on August 16, 2014 ; Retrieved July 25, 2016 .
  10. ^ Righteous Among the Nations Honored by Yad Vashem By January 1, 2013: Austria. (PDF; 334 kB) Yad Vashem , May 4, 2016, accessed on July 25, 2016 .
  11. ↑ The stars do not go out . Lhotsky Film, April 24, 2012, accessed on July 25, 2016 (pdf; 217 kB).
personal data
SURNAME Posiles, Edeltrud
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Becher, Edeltrud (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Righteous Among the Nations
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 23rd July 2016
Place of death Vienna