Maria Rudolf

Maria Rudolf (born August 17, 1926 in Gorizia , † December 22, 2012 in Opicina ) was an Italian resistance fighter against National Socialism and a survivor of Auschwitz .

Childhood and youth

Rudolf grew up in a small village near the Slovenian border, where she lived with her father Massimiliano, mother Teresa Kobal, and a sister and two brothers (the younger died of meningitis at the age of ten ).

After the armistice of September 8, 1943 , the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region was annexed to the German Reich and the partisan groups tried to fight National Socialism to an even greater extent. Rudolf was also part of the resistance : her task was to deliver letters from one group to another.

Arrest and deportation

However, their activity was discovered, Rudolf was arrested and imprisoned in Gorizia. She and two other young partisans were tried on June 13, 1944 in Gorizia, in which all three were acquitted. Nevertheless, Rudolf was not released, but transferred to the prison in Trieste .

On September 2, 1944, she was deported from Trieste to Auschwitz , where she arrived after a five-day journey. The prisoner number 88492 was tattooed on her forearm.

In Auschwitz and Plauen

By eating the leftover food from sick people in the station , she managed to eat better than her fellow prisoners, even if she ran the risk of being discovered and killed.

On October 14, 1944, after forty days in Auschwitz, Rudolf was selected to work in a factory and transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp . She also received a new prisoner number sewn onto her shirt: 60301

In the city of Plauen , near Flossenburg, it was the work of light bulbs Osram to forced labor reassigned. The factory produced light bulbs for war aircraft. Maria Rudolf later described the kapo assigned to her (a German in uniform ; consequently not a prisoner) in the factory as a vile and brutal woman.

In April 1945 the factory was bombed and set on fire by the Allies . Together with five other inmates, Rudolf fled to a nearby forest before she was finally freed a few days later. Only in August 1945 did she return to her former place of residence after traveling home for almost a month.

Many years after her liberation, she met some of the companions from back then on various occasions to exchange her memories. Likewise, she frequently made herself available as a contemporary witness for historically interested students .

At the beginning of 2009 Rudolf lived in Trieste. She has two sons and a daughter.

literature

Gabriella Nocentini: Tutto questo va detto. La deportazione di Maria Rudolf , Portogruaro: nuova dimensione 2008, ISBN 9788889100554 (in Italian)

Individual evidence

↑ Unless otherwise stated, all information was taken from the book by Gabriella Nocentini (see "Literature")

personal data
SURNAME	Rudolf, Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Italian resistance fighter against National Socialism and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH	17th August 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH	Gorizia
DATE OF DEATH	December 22, 2012
Place of death	Opicina

[1] Unless otherwise stated, all information was taken from the book by Gabriella Nocentini (see "Literature")