Gisela Tschofenig

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Gisela Tschofenig , b. Taurer (born May 21, 1917 in Landskron , † April 27, 1945 in Linz ) was an Austrian anti-fascist resistance fighter.

Life

Gisela Tschofenig came from a family of railway workers , grew up in Carinthia and was brought up by her parents with a socialist attitude. From childhood she was active in social democratic youth organizations ( Kinderfreunde , Rote Falken ), in 1932 she switched to the Communist Youth Association . It was there that she met her future husband, Josef Tschofenig. At the age of 16, she came into conflict with the police because of a leaflet campaign for the KJV in Villach .

After elementary and secondary school, she completed the three-year college for business professions in Villach. In 1935 she and her family moved to Linz , where her father, a train driver, had been transferred because of political unreliability. In April 1937 she tried in vain to get to Spain with her friend Margarethe Gröblinger in order to be able to take part in the Spanish Civil War on the part of the Republic . Instead, she worked for a year as a governess in Lyon , France. After her return to Linz in April 1938, she worked as a cashier for the Deutsche Reichsbahn at Linz Central Station until 1939 .

In July 1939 she followed her partner Josef Tschofenig , a functionary of the illegal KPÖ, to Antwerp in Belgium. After his arrest as a result of the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in May 1940, she returned legally to Austria, where she was active in the communist resistance group around Josef “Sepp” Teufl , the regional chairman of the Communist Party . She acted as his liaison, took care of courier services and wrote leaflets.

Her son Hermann was born on December 21, 1940, and on June 3, 1944 she married Tschofenig in the Dachau concentration camp , where he had been interned since December 1940. Your efforts to get his release were in vain. Because of political activity against the Nazi regime , the Gestapo arrested Gisela Tschofenig on September 25, 1944 near Villach, where she and her son had withdrawn in July to avoid persecution.

She was imprisoned in the Kaplanhof women's prison in Linz . After the prison was bombed on March 31, 1945, she was transferred to the Schörgenhub labor education camp, where she was shot by the SS on April 27, 1945, just six days before the camp was liberated. It does not appear on any death list, because because of the approaching American troops, both the camp management and the guard fled and no more entries were made. However, a surviving friend knew the place where Gisela Tschofenig and five other victims were buried. Her father exhumed her body on May 13, 1945, and on May 15, 1945 she was buried in the Linz-Kleinmünchen cemetery.

Honors

  • In 2006, a street in the Ebelsberg district of Linz was named after Gisela Tschofenig. Tschofenigweg runs after Kremsmünsterer Straße 38 (Volkshaus) first in a northerly, then in a westerly direction through the residential complex and is a dead end.

literature

  • Max Muchitsch: The Red Relay. From Triglav to Hochschwab. Globus Verlag, Vienna 1985, pp. 471–478.
  • Eugenie Kain: A comb in the grass. Memory of Gisela Tschofenig, who was murdered by the SS. In: Volksstimme , May 9, 1985.
  • Martina Gugglberger: "Try to stay decent" - Resistance and persecution of women in the Reichsgau Oberdonau. In: Gabriella Hauch (ed.): Women in the Reichsgau Oberdonau. Gender-specific fault lines in National Socialism. Oberösterreichisches Landesarchiv, Linz 2006 (= Upper Austria in the time of National Socialism , vol. 5), pp. 281–343, here pp. 314–316. (Picture on p. 315.)
  • Erich Hackl: Tschofenigweg. Legend to it. In: Alfred Pittertschatscher (ed.): Linz. Side stories. Picus Verlag, Vienna 2009, pp. 157–202.
    • Republication: Erich Hackl: Three tearless stories. Diogenes, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-257-06884-9 . Pp. 100-153.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.kpoe.at/bund/frauen/html/kain.html ( Memento from January 11, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Tschofenig, Gisela
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gisela Taurer, Gisl Taurer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Landskron , Carinthia
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1945
Place of death Linz