Rosa Jochmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rosa Jochmann's signature, excerpt from a membership card of the Association of Socialist Freedom Fighters and Victims of Fascism

Rosa Jochmann (born July 19, 1901 in Vienna ; † January 28, 1994 there ) was an Austrian resistance fighter and social democratic politician.

Live and act

Childhood and youth

Rosa Jochmann was born in 1901 as the fourth of six children to a washerwoman and an iron caster in the 20th district of Vienna , Brigittenau . The family soon moved to the 11th district, Simmering , where they lived in various rental houses until they finally got an apartment in the 1912 health insurance houses on Braunhubergasse. Rosa attended five classes of elementary school and three classes of community school . At the age of 14 she lost her mother Josefine, who died of "exhaustion" at the age of 41. Although Rosa's young career aspirations were a nun and a teacher, she now had to take care of siblings and father as a factory worker.

From 1915 to 1916 she was a worker in the Simmeringer confectionery factory Victor Schmidt & Sons . In 1916 she was a war service worker in the Simmeringer cable factory Ariadne . In 1917 she became a worker in the Apollo candle factory (today Unilever) and an official in the chemical workers' association. Her father Karl Jochmann was a member of a group of Moravian social democrats; It was through him that the young Rosa grew into social democracy and took part in demonstrations and meetings. Her father died in 1920 at the age of 44.

Political career

In 1920 Rosa Jochmann became a worker and works councilor at the Auer company in Simmering (production of gas mantles ). In 1925 she became the secretary of the Chemical Union Union. She held this position until 1932. As a union secretary, she joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP).

In 1926 Jochmann attended the first course at the workers' college in Vienna and belonged to the elite group of the first graduate course at the party college in Döblinger Schlössl . Then she quickly rose to the top of the party. In 1932 she became the central secretary of the Socialist Women of Austria , and in 1933 she was elected to the federal executive committee of the SDAP.

In 1934, during the February fighting, she was a stenographer for radio reports for the trunk party leadership. After the party was banned by the Dollfuss I dictatorship on February 12, 1934 , she represented the old party executive in the leadership committee of the (illegal) successor organization Revolutionary Socialists Austria (RS). She continued her political work under the code name Josefine Drechsler. In August 1934 she was arrested in an underground operation in Wiener Neustadt and subsequently sentenced to one year in prison and three months as a police officer.

When Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg hesitantly sought a reconciliation with the labor movement shortly before the "Anschluss" with Germany , it was Rosa Jochmann who traveled to Brno for the last time to see the leading party ideologist Otto Bauer . She listened to Schuschnigg's famous radio farewell speech together with Franz Rauscher in the palace of Elisabeth Windisch-Graetz , the granddaughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I , who actively supported the revolutionary socialists of Austria during the time of Austrofascism .

Gestapo detention and concentration camp

Memorial plaque on Jochmann's former home in Simmering, Braunhubergasse 25

She was arrested again in March 1938, but released after just two days. She refused to emigrate and began to work in a Jewish textile shop on Salzgries in the inner city.

Although she was given the opportunity to flee, Rosa Jochmann stayed in Vienna, where she was arrested on August 22, 1939, immediately before the outbreak of war, and after months in Gestapo detention, in March 1940 she was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp with the note “ return undesirable ” in her protective custody order (Protective inmate 3014). Through the intercession of Käthe Leichter, the camp administration made her the block elder. It acted as an intermediary between the camp management and the inmates. In Ravensbrück there was, among other things, a six-month dark detention with food deprivation and forced labor in the industrial block.

When the camp was liberated by Soviet troops in the spring of 1945, Rosa Jochmann stayed behind with many others to look after the sick and waited in vain for the Austrian government to bring her compatriots home. Finally, she and her companion Friedl Sedlacek set off for Vienna herself to organize a ride home. She found her apartment in Vienna bombed out. The offer to move into an “Aryanized” Jewish villa in Döbling, from which the National Socialist owners had fled, was decidedly refused and for years they were content with a single room as a place to stay.

After 1945

Rosa Jochmann's grave with memorial plaque

After her return, she immediately resumed her political activities in the SPÖ, where she was a member of the party executive until 1967. She was seen as a representative of the left wing in the party.

From December 19, 1945 to May 16, 1967 she was a member of the National Council for the SPÖ (5th – XIth legislative period) and from 1956 to 1967 a member of the party executive of the SPÖ and deputy chairwoman of the SPÖ. In 1959 she became the SPÖ women's chairwoman.

In 1967 Rosa Jochmann resigned her political offices with one exception; she only retained her position as chairwoman of the Association of Socialist Freedom Fighters (an association of former revolutionary socialists in Austria ).

Throughout her life she was a warning against right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism . She gave countless lectures and, as a contemporary witness, conveyed her experiences and attitudes in school and congress visits at home and abroad. Her last major public appearance had the sea of lights in 1993, the largest demonstration of the Second Republic, against the anti-foreigner referendum " Austria first " of the Freedom Party , where she admonished as a speaker for the last time against right-wing and anti-Semitism.

Within the party, she demanded (mostly in vain) the active repatriation of Austrian exiles. In 1981, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, she was made an honorary citizen of the City of Vienna .

On January 28, 1994 Rosa Jochmann died after a heart attack in Vienna's Hanusch Hospital . She is buried in a grave of honor in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 14 C, number 1 A); The gravestone and memorial plaque were designed by Leopold Grausam .

The Rosa-Jochmann-Ring , the Rosa-Jochmann-Schule and the Rosa-Jochmann-Hof in Simmering as well as the Rosa-Jochmann-Park in the Leopoldstadt were named in her honor. In 2004, in a reader survey by the Viennese daily Kurier, she was selected in the list of the 50 most important Austrians of the past 50 years . The Rosa Jochmann badge has been awarded since 2015 .

literature

  • Veronika Duma: Rosa Jochmann . Political actor and contemporary witness. ÖGB-Verlag, Vienna 2019, ISBN 978-3-99046-319-2 .
  • Rosa Jochmann, portrait of a socialist . Zeitdokumente 40, undated, SPÖ publishing house
  • Eva Blimlinger: 100 Austrian women of the 20th century . In: Dr. Karl Renner Institute (ed.): Future. 2/1999. Women. Body. Power . P. 40 ff., Here p. 42, Echo-Verlag, Vienna 1999.
  • Irene Etzersdorfer: Rosa Jochmann . In: Herbert Dachs, Peter Gerlich , Wolfgang C. Müller (Hrsg.): The politicians. Careers and work of important representatives of the Second Republic . P. 244 ff.
  • Maria Sporrer, Herbert Steiner (Ed.): Rosa Jochmann. Contemporary witness. Vienna 1983.
  • Hans Waschek (Ed.): Rosa Jochmann. A fight that never ends (speeches and essays). Löcker Verlag, Vienna 1994.
  • Franz Richard Reiter (Ed.): Who was Rosa Jochmann? - Documents - Reports - Analyzes . Ephelant Verlag, Vienna 1997.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rosa Jochmann honorary citizen of Vienna . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna July 30, 1981, p. 08 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
personal data
SURNAME Jochmann, Rosa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician (SPÖ), member of the National Council, resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1994
Place of death Vienna