Lotte Brainin

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Lotte Brainin (born on November 12, 1920 in Vienna as Charlotte Sontag ; died on December 16, 2020 there ) was an Austrian resistance fighter against National Socialism , a contemporary witness and survivor of the Holocaust .

Life

Lotte Sontag was the daughter of Jetti and Maurycy Sontag, she had four siblings. Her parents had fled to Vienna from the eastern crown land of Galicia of the Habsburg monarchy at the beginning of the First World War . Already in her youth she joined the socialist youth organization Rote Falken and actively fought against the growing National Socialism in Austria. After the February fighting in 1934 , she joined the Communist Youth Association of Austria at the age of 14 . A year later, she was arrested for the first time and sentenced to three weeks in prison. After the Anschluss of Austria She was doubly threatened as a Jew and a communist and in 1938 she fled to Belgium via Cologne and Aachen, where she joined the Jewish resistance group Austrian Freedom Front (ÖFF).

In 1943 she was arrested while handing over an anti-war newspaper and taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. There she was active in the camp's internal resistance in the combat group Union Kommando , which tried to blow up one of the crematoria . In the camp she survived three selections . In early 1945 she was forced to take part in a death march . She was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp , from which she managed to escape at the end of April 1945.

After the war she returned to Vienna, where she met her husband Hugo Brainin , who had survived the war years in exile in Great Britain. The couple had two daughters, Elisabeth and Marianne, who both studied psychology and worked with trauma patients . Both Lotte and her husband appeared as contemporary witnesses. In January 1947 she testified as a witness in the Ravensbrück trial and contributed to one of the perpetrators being sentenced to death.

Lotte Brainin was a member of the Federal Association of Austrian Resistance Fighters and a Victim of Fascism as well as temporarily on the board of the Austrian camp community Auschwitz .

Brainin celebrated its 100th birthday on November 12, 2020. The ceremony coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria and was therefore held virtually. There was a virtual exhibition with congratulations from the Austrian Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and his predecessor Heinz Fischer . Among the well-wishers was her niece, Elfriede Jelinek , the well-known Nobel Prize winner for literature . This spoke a five-minute greeting message, which was also part of the virtual exhibition.

Lotte Brainin died on December 16, 2020.

Movie

  • 1999: Lotte Brainin: Living with self-will and courage. Director: Bernadette Dewald. documentary

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Klaus Taschwer: Lotte Brainin: A Jewish heroine of the resistance turns one hundred. In: derStandard.de . November 12, 2020, accessed November 12, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Alexandra Förderl-Schmid: Lotte Brainin. The woman who is stronger than oblivion . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . November 12, 2020, p. 4 .
  3. ↑ Congratulations !. :  The new reminder call. Journal for Law, Freedom and Democracy / The new warning call. Journal for Freedom, Law and Democracy , 1985, p. 98ff. (Online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dnm
  4. ^ General assembly of the Auschwitzers. :  The new reminder call. Journal for Law, Freedom and Democracy / The new warning call. Journal for Freedom, Law and Democracy , 1983, p. 98ff. (Online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dnm
  5. ↑ a b Marika Schmiedt: Lotte Brainin: Biography. In: brainin.at. December 19, 2020, accessed December 23, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Leitner Karin: Auschwitz survivor Lotte Brainin is celebrated. In: tt.com . November 9, 2020, accessed November 12, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Holocaust survivor Lotte Brainin is dead. In: orf.at . December 22, 2020, accessed December 22, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Lotte Brainin: Living with self-will and courage. In: film.at. Retrieved November 12, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Brainin, Lotte
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sunday, Lotte
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian resistance fighter against National Socialism, contemporary witness and survivor of the Holocaust
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 2020