Maria Caesar

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Maria Cäsar (born on September 13, 1920 in Prevalje ; died on September 1, 2017 in Graz ) was an Austrian resistance fighter , contemporary witness and KPÖ activist.

life and work

Caesar was in Liescha at Prävali area Mießtal was born in Lower Carinthia. This area of Austria-Hungary's crown land Carinthia - like Unterdrauburg and Seeland - became the SHS state, then a kingdom , after the First World War by the Treaty of Saint-Germain of September 1919 before the Carinthian referendum of October 10, 1920 in areas adjacent to the north Yugoslavia , today Slovenia. Mießenal is part of Slovenska Koroška .

The family moved to Judenburg in Upper Styria due to the new border being drawn . The father found work as a machinist in the cast steel works, today Stahl Judenburg GmbH , the mother in agriculture. As a member of the Social Democrats, the family first felt the reprisals of state power in February 1934, which proclaimed an authoritarian corporate state. As a youth she was a member of the Rote Falken , after February 1934 the Communist Youth Association and did illegal work in the underground. As a 18-year-old Caesar joined a resistance group against the Nazi regime . On May 23, 1939, she was arrested by the Gestapo for allegedly preparing to commit high treason and spent 14 months in custody at the Graz Regional Court.

She married immediately after her release. Like her, her first husband was a member of a resistance group. Shortly after the birth of their first child in 1943, her husband died on the Eastern Front . Maria Caesar made contact with Yugoslav partisans and resistance groups in Judenburg. When resistance groups were increasingly tracked down and their members arrested in 1944, she was able to go into hiding with Slovenian relatives shortly before the collapse of the Nazi regime. A close colleague was executed.

In 1950 she moved from Judenburg to Graz. Later, as a contemporary witness, Caesar tried to pass on her experiences, especially to the youth, in lectures at schools and educational institutions, "to warn and admonish in order to prevent a fatal development." After the war she was a long-time activist in the Federation of Democratic Women and in the KPÖ . Caesar was honored several times by public authorities. For many years she was the Styrian state chairwoman of the concentration camp association and in 2008 gave a much-noticed speech at the constituent meeting of the Graz municipal council:

“We also remember that Austria was wiped out, Austria was no longer recognized as Austria, but Austria was declared an Ostmark, part of Germany. [...] But I also remind you that there was another Austria, another Austria that said no to it, no to National Socialism, another Austria that encouraged people to also offer resistance. "

- Maria Caesar : Speech to the Graz City Council, March 13, 2008

Maria Caesar died shortly before her 97th birthday on September 1, 2017 in Graz.

publication

  • Maria Caesar and Heimo Halbrainer (eds.): You can see them in the dark. Women in Resistance - Persecution of Women in Styria (= Clio - Association for History and Educational Work: Historical and Sociopolitical Writings of the Association Clio , Volume 5), CLIO, Graz 2007, ISBN 978-3-902542-05-2 .

Awards

proof

  1. ↑ Parte pax-requiem.at, accessed September 17, 2017.
  2. ↑ Kleine Zeitung : Against all opposition , November 24, 2011. Quoted here from the website of the KPÖ Graz.
  3. ↑ KPÖ : Styria honors Maria Cäsar , accessed on January 28, 2015.
  4. ↑ Austria Press Agency : Styrian resistance fighter Maria Cäsar celebrates her 90th birthday , here quoted from Der Standard , September 13, 2010.
  5. ↑ KPÖ : Maria Caesar celebrates her 90th birthday , accessed on January 28, 2015.
  6. ↑ City of Graz : Short biography of Maria Caesar ( Memento of the original from September 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on January 28, 2015.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.graz.at
  7. ↑ Agenda and minutes , accessed on January 28, 2014.
  8. ↑ orf.at : Styrian Nazi contemporary witness Maria Cäsar has died . orf.at, September 3, 2017, accessed on September 6, 2017. - With a different date of death ("Saturday").
  9. ↑ Parte der Familie , pax-requiem.at, accessed on September 14, 2017.
  10. ^ Obituary notices > Maria Caesar notices from the city of Graz and families, accessed September 17, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Caesar, Mary
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian resistance fighter, KPÖ activist and contemporary witness
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Prevalje , now Slovenia
DATE OF DEATH 1st September 2017
Place of death Graz