Mignon Langnas

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Mignon Langnas , née Rothenberg (* 1903 in Boryslaw ; † November 1949 in New York ), was a Jewish nurse who survived the National Socialist regime and the Second World War in Vienna . Her diaries and letters are regarded as important sources for the everyday life of the Jewish population under National Socialist rule .

Life

Mignon Rothenberg came to Vienna in 1914 with her family from Boryslaw in Galicia . In 1928 she married Leo Langnas. The marriage resulted in the children Manuela and Georg, who now (2013) live in the USA. While her husband and children managed to escape to New York after the annexation of Austria in 1938, she stayed behind in Vienna with her frail and ailing parents. Langnas worked from 1940 as a nurse for the old people's home of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde in Vienna and from 1942 for the Jewish children's hospital. One of her patients was the future writer Robert Schindel . She survived the war as an openly Jewish woman and was able to travel to her family in the USA in 1946. In 1949 she died after a long and serious illness.

Letter and diary edition

Langnas' diaries and letters, which were published in 2010, describe the everyday life of the Jewish population under National Socialist rule and represent "contemporary historical evidence of unique value".

In his epilogue to the 2010 book Mignon , the writer and historian Doron Rabinovici wrote : "But Mignon resisted the totalitarian negation of the individual with all his might, whether as a Jew, as a daughter, as a mother, as a lover, as a nurse or as a sufferer, and even in her writing she fought against eradication. At a time when every secret letter, note, and open word could mean a death sentence, she persistently recorded what was happening. She wrote against eradication. She made a mistake of memory. In this way she resisted a crime which denied her being human. She remained the subject of her own history. "

The historian Dieter J. Hecht judges in a review of the letter and diary edition: “The diary played a special role in this. It is a unique source that allows a very personal insight into the everyday experiences of the survivors because it was not intended for others. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gabriele Anderl: Gray heap of life, in: Die Presse, December 23, 2010, [1]
  2. ↑ "Mignon" ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.studienverlag.at
  3. ↑ Dieter J. Hecht: Review of: Fraller, Elisabeth; Langnas, George (Ed.): Mignon. Diaries and letters of a Jewish nurse in Vienna 1938-1949. Innsbruck 2010, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, June 14, 2011 online version

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Langnas, mignon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rothenberg, Mignon; Rottenberg, Mignon (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian nurse
DATE OF BIRTH 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Boryslaw
DATE OF DEATH November 1949
Place of death new York