Stefanie Kunke

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Stefanie Kunke b. Jelinek (born December 26, 1908 in Vienna ; died February 14, 1943 in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp ) was an Austrian teacher and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime . She was - like her husband Hans Kunke - arrested, deported and murdered.

Life

Stefanie Jelinek was born as the daughter of Stanislaus and Maria Jelinek in the Vienna Rudolf Foundation . Aunt Flora Jelinek , a handicraft teacher, and grandmother Margarete Jelinek took her in early and raised her. The two women and the child lived at Langen Gasse 47 in what was then the suburb of Mauer near Vienna (since 1938 in Vienna, since 1954 in the 23rd district). The Jelinek family originally came from Ober-St.-Veit in the 13th district and had a family grave at the cemetery there.

From 1914 to 1922 Stefanie attended the elementary and community school in Mauer and was described as highly talented, poetic and musical, very hard-working and extremely decent. Some of her poems - for example on the farewell of departing teachers or for the market survey ceremony in Mauer - are preserved in the school chronicle of Mauer .

After attending a transition class in 1922/23, she graduated from the Hegelgasse teacher training college between 1923 and 1928 . She then studied at the Pedagogical Institute in Vienna until 1930 and then a few semesters of political science and philosophy . From 1931 to 1936 she worked - with interruptions - as a junior teacher at elementary schools in the Vienna districts of Josefstadt (8th), Favoriten (10th) and Hietzing (13th). On September 28, 1934, she married Hans Kunke , an official with Wiener Städtische Versicherung . The couple moved into an apartment in the 7th district, Neubau , at Zieglergasse 46.

Like her aunt, Stefanie Jelinek was politically left-wing. She got involved in the Socialist Workers' Youth early on, and was their chairwoman in Mauer from 1923 to 1927. During the socialist movement, she also met her future husband, Hans. She has lectured repeatedly in her home district and abroad. After the February fights in 1934 and the ban on all social democratic organizations by the Dollfuss dictatorship , Stefanie and Hans were elected to the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist Youth . The young couple was arrested on January 9, 1936 for spreading socialist literature and sentenced to prison sentences on July 8, 1936 - Stefanie to seven months, Hans to 18 months. However, due to the amnesty law, the couple were released.

Two months after Austria's "annexation" to the National Socialist German Reich , on May 20, 1938, the couple was arrested again for their work for the Revolutionary Socialists and sent to concentration camps without a court judgment . Stefanie Kunke was initially taken to the police building in Rossauer Lände , a police prison, and remained there until July 15, 1938. After that, she was imprisoned for almost a year in the women 's concentration camp in Lichtenburg (in what is now Saxony-Anhalt ) and from May 1939 for more than three years in the women's concentration camp in Ravensbrück where she became block elder.

“For not reporting a criminal act committed by one of her room elders, she was given a two-year sentence as a punishment. At that time the punishment block had to build the Ravensbrück camp. Heavy stones break, building materials are loaded from ships until late at night, penalties and then usually without food for two or three hours in bed. ”In the spring of 1941 she is said to have been released from the penal block and to have taken over the function of a block clerk in the political block. The socialists and later politicians Rosa Jochmann and Helene Potetz were among her fellow campers . In the spring of 1942 she was deported to Auschwitz.

Her letters to aunt and grandmother contained some poems full of sadness. She also wrote a children's book, the manuscript of which has unfortunately been lost. The following verse comes from a song by Stefanie Kunke:

"Around you, however, people moan,
cry out in a thousandfold distress,
kicked, beaten, tortured, tormented,
after a barbarous hour of command."

Her husband was shot in Buchenwald concentration camp on October 30, 1940 . Hans Kunke was cremated and his urn was buried in the family grave in the Hietzinger Friedhof (group 28, number 15). There are divergent information about the cause of death of Stefanie Kunke, they range from typhus to death by being killed. She was cremated in Auschwitz and the ashes of her aunt Flora Jelinek were given for a fee. Her urn was buried next to her husband's on March 30, 1943.

Commemoration

Street sign of the Kunkegasse in Vienna-Liesing

A memorial stone and a street named after her and her husband, Kunkegasse in the 23rd district, Liesing , part of the Mauer district , commemorate the resistance fighter against the Nazi regime:

  • On May 19, 1954, Mackgasse , a side street of Maurer Langen Gasse , where Stefanie grew up, was renamed after Hans and Stefanie Kunke by resolution of the municipal council committee for culture.
  • A memorial stone was laid by the Stones of Remembrance Initiative in Liesing in front of their previous residence at 47 Maurer Langen Gasse ; her name can also be found in the list of Liesinger Victims of National Socialism 1938–1945 .

The grave of Hans and Stefanie Kunke in the Hietzingen cemetery has been rededicated as a grave of honor. Their personality and work were long remembered in the socialist youth . After 1945 a children's home in Mauer was called Steffi-Heim .

Sources and literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Böhm: Familie Kunke , accessed on May 31, 2015
  2. ↑ Kunkegasse in Vienna History Wiki of the city of Vienna
  3. ^ Peter Autengruber : Lexicon of Viennese street names. Meaning, origin, background information, previous designation (s). Vienna Pichler-Verlag, 9th edition 2014
  4. ↑ Liesingen Victims of National Socialism 1938 - 1945 ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 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. , accessed May 31, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.steine23.at
  5. ^ Vienna Tourist Guide: Hans and Stefanie Kunke, victims of fascism , accessed on May 31, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Kunke, Stefanie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jelinek, Stefanie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian teacher and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH December 26, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 1943
Place of death Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp