Ernestine Zoref

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Ernestine Zoref , née Zenker, (born May 23, 1896 in Vienna ; † June 30 / July 1, 1934 in Dachau concentration camp ) was an Austrian woman, a victim of the Röhm putsch in early summer 1934 and the first woman to be a prisoner after Dachau came.

Life

Zoref had been the partner of the Baltic writer Paul Edmund von Hahn since the 1920s . Hahn became the second director of Münchener Neuesten Nachrichten in 1933 .

Although Hahn was originally a friend of Reinhard Heydrich , he was later suspected of espionage for the Soviet Union and sent to the Dachau concentration camp. After he was allegedly released from the camp on March 26, 1934, he is said to have fled abroad. Zoref, who was suspected of complicity, was arrested in his place in Dachau. According to the current state of research, she was the first woman to come to Dachau as a prisoner.

After Zoref was initially released from prison on May 12, she was arrested again seven weeks later, on June 30, 1934, as part of the Röhm putsch. On the same evening, Zoref was again admitted to Dachau and killed there immediately after her arrival. The inmate Josef Eckstein, who witnessed the event, later described it as follows:

“Around 11 o'clock another car brought four men and one woman. They were driven to the bridge of the canal that runs through the camp. Here they had to get out and were immediately met by SS guards. The deputy camp commandant Lippert von Schönwald gave the company commander Dammbach a sign to earth. Now the 5 victims, where the camp guard used to be, were led past and shot from behind in front of the forest. [...] In her fear of death, the woman surrounded an SS man, who pushed her aside and slammed her down. "

Zoref was one of at least eighty-five people and - alongside Elisabeth von Schleicher and the non-Jewish Hirschberger Jeanette Zweig, wife of the Jewish doctor Alexander Zweig - one of three women who were murdered in the Röhm Putsch.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ While Gruchmann and Wilhelm Hoegner: Der Politische Radikalismus in Deutschland, 1919–1933. 1966, p. 236. Specify Zoref's first name as Ernestin e , it is in Martin Broszat / Elke Fröhlich / Falk Wiesemann: Bavaria in the Nazi era. 1977, ISBN 3-486-42381-9 , p. 365, and Hans-Günter Richardi: School of Violence The beginnings of the Dachau concentration camp 1933–1934. 1983, p. 313 Ernestin a .
  2. ^ Bernhard Kiekenap : SS Junker School. SA and SS in Braunschweig , 2008, p. 240.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Persecution as group fate, 1998, p. 221.
  4. ↑ Martha Schad: Women against Hitler, 2001, p. 114.
  5. ↑ International Dachau Committee: Dachauer Hefte, Vol. 8–9, p. 222.
personal data
SURNAME Zoref, Ernestine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zenker, Ernestine (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Nazi victim
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 1934 or July 1, 1934
Place of death Dachau concentration camp