Hedwig Urach
Hedwig Urach (born on August 20, 1910 in Vienna ; died on May 17, 1943 there ), also known as Hedy Urach , was an Austrian seamstress and resistance fighter against the corporate state and National Socialism . She was sentenced to death by the Nazi regime and beheaded .
life and work
Born and raised in Hietzing , the 13th district of Vienna, as the daughter of a tram driver and a Communist Party functionary, she was already involved with the social democratic children's friends during school . Then she learned the trade of tailoring and switched to the Communist Youth Association of Austria (KJVÖ), where she educated herself politically, was active as a functionary and also spent her free time in sport and nature with comrades.
In 1931 she was delegated by this organization to the International Lenin School in Moscow; one of their teachers there was Alfred Klahr . In October 1932 she returned to Vienna and became a member of the Central Committee of the KJVÖ. On May 26, 1933, the KPÖ and its subsidiary organizations were banned by the undemocratic government of Dollfuss I. When KJVÖ secretary Leo Gabler , her partner at the time, was arrested in 1934, she took over his position. Urach was finally also an Austrian delegate to the 6th World Congress of the Communist Youth International in Moscow in September and October 1935. In March 1937 she was imprisoned for four months "for working for the KPÖ". At this point she was already a member of the party's central committee.
After the “Anschluss” of Austria , Urach was arrested by the Nazi regime and again imprisoned for four months. The secretly active KPÖ classified them as endangered and withdrew them from their functions, which were then carried out by Bruno Dubber . In May 1939 she went into exile in Belgium and worked as a nanny. In Belgium, too - together with Auguste Bailly, Herta Ligeti , Lotte Sontag , Anni Hand and others - she continued to work for the Austrian resistance of the KPÖ. As an “undesirable foreigner” she was interned by the Belgian security apparatus in January 1940, but was able to escape internment in the course of the invasion of the Wehrmacht . After the German invasion in May 1940, she returned to Carinthia and then to Vienna on the instructions of the party and belonged to the third leadership group around Erwin Puschmann that the KPÖ had after the “Anschluss”. On June 17, 1941, a few days before the attack by the German Reich on the Soviet Union , Urach was arrested again as the last member of this leadership group. She was held in solitary confinement in Krems an der Donau for a few months and was then transferred to Vienna.
On December 16, 1942, Hedy Urach was sentenced to death by the People's Court together with co-defendants Friedrich Nesvadba , Alfons Peschke , Franz Tesarik and Vladimír Zoul . She spent almost half a year on death row in the Vienna Regional Court. “With conviction and proud courage,” she faced the National Socialist persecution, as she wrote to her parents.
"I am a child of the working class, part of that wonderful stratum of the people from which all life comes."
Red posters in Vienna announced her execution on May 17, 1943.
Quote of appreciation
"Modest and clever, spirited and devoted to the cause of communism - was Hedy Urach."
Memory, honor
Hedwig Urach was buried on May 18, 1943 in the Vienna Central Cemetery. Her grave site (group 40, row 27, grave no. 47) is, as was decreed after 1945, for the duration of the cemetery.
In 1948, Hedy Urach wrote in the book “ Immortal Sacrifice . Fallen in the struggle of the Communist Party for Austria's freedom ”. In 1949, in the 13th district of Vienna, Tolstojgasse was renamed Hedy-Urach-Gasse in the Auhofer Trennstück (SAT) settlement in the south of the district, which was incorporated into Vienna in 1938 .
In 1949 a cashier from Hedwig Urach was found on March 21, 1943. In the volume published by Brigitte Bailer , Wolfgang Maderthaner and Kurt Scholz, published in 2013 by the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance , “Execution proceeded without special features.” Executions in Vienna from 1938 to 1945 Urach is on the front page and on p. 93 on a photo taken in Belgium pictured; In the text, from p. 92 on, the exact wording of her cash register and her farewell letter to her parents is given.
Your name can be found on three plaques:
- on the memorial for the Hietzingen tramers beheaded by the Nazi regime in front of the tram depot (in Vienna: the Remise), 13th, Hetzendorfer Strasse 188, dedicated to her and to the resistance fighters Emil König , Heinrich Lochner and Maximilian, who were also executed by the Nazi regime Schrems
- on the memorial plaque for twelve central committee members, which was unveiled on the occasion of the 14th party congress of the KPÖ (1948) in the then house of the central committee (9th, Wasagasse 10, today Gymnasium Wasagasse ) and then in the house of the KPÖ Vienna 10, later Ernst-Kirchweger -Haus , 10., Wielandgasse 2-4, was located, as well
- on the memorial plaque in the former execution room of the Vienna Regional Court .
literature
- Bailer , Maderthaner , Scholz (ed.): "The enforcement went without any special features". Executions in Vienna, 1938-1945. Publisher: Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance, Vienna 2013, pages 92–94, online (with a picture of the executed): [1]
- Manfred Mugrauer: Soldier of the Just Cause . On the 100th birthday of the communist resistance fighter Hedy Urach, in: Mitteilungen der Alfred Klahr Gesellschaft, vol. 17, No. 3, September 2001, pp. 9–21.
- Michael Krassnitzer: Resistance in Hietzing. The fight for freedom 1934-1938 and 1938-1945 using the example of a Viennese district . Edition Volkshochschule, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-900-799-58-X
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Matthias Keuschnigg in: Library Association in the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Vienna (ed.): Catalog The History of the Gray House and Austrian Criminal Jurisdiction , Vienna 2012, Chapter 5, NS-Unrechtsjustiz , brochure: p. 135 ff. (= P. 68 of digital representation on the website of the Ministry of Justice)
- ^ The hearing took place either in Krems or in Vienna. We are working on verifying the venue.
- ↑ Illustration on p. 137 of the catalog published in 2012
- ↑ http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=krz&date=19430520&seite=5&zoom=33&query=%22hingerierter%22&ref=anno-search
- ↑ Data from the website www.friedhoefewien.at of the municipal cemetery operations
- ^ Website of the DÖW
- ^ Photo of the plaque on the website of a Viennese tourist guide
- ^ Postwar Justice , accessed February 10, 2015
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Urach, Hedwig |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Urach, Hedy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian seamstress and resistance fighter against National Socialism |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 20, 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 17, 1943 |
| Place of death | Vienna |