Help for Olga Benario Prestes from Mexico

“Mrs. Prestes is allowed to receive letters,” the German Red Cross wrote in 1937. Leocádia seized the opportunity, hoping to save her daughter-in-law Olga from Nazi persecution.

Olga Benario was born in Munich in 1908. Her father was a lawyer, her mother the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Both her parents were Jewish. Olga first began to challenge social injustices as a teenager, and at fifteen, she joined the Communist Youth League and met Otto Braun. She was just 16 when she moved to Berlin with him.

She left the Jewish community, declared herself “godless,” joined the German Communist Party and, like Otto, began working for the Soviet secret service. In 1926, Otto was arrested for high treason, and in 1928, Olga helped to liberate him from prison. The breakout succeeded, and Olga fled with him and other comrades to Moscow.

Military and political training

In Moscow, she received military and political training at the International Lenin School, and in 1934, she met Brazilian communist Luís Carlos Prestes. The two soon became romantically involved. At 26 she accompanied Luís on a mission to Brazil for the Communist International, serving as his “Commander of Security.” Prestes was preparing an uprising against the military dictatorship, but the uprising failed, and the couple were arrested. For Olga, who was pregnant, this was the beginning of a harrowing ordeal.

Extradited from Brazil – despite her pregnancy

In 1936, the Brazilian government handed Olga over to the Nazi regime, presumably to cement the country’s new alliance with Nazi Germany. She was heavily pregnant by then. In August she was sent to Barnimstraße prison in Berlin, and it was there that she gave birth to her daughter Anita in November 1936. Fourteen months later, on January 21, 1938, the child was taken from her.

Not until days later did Olga learn that Anita was safe. Her mother-in-law – Leocádia Prestes –and her husband’s sister Lygia had rescued the child from the prison. The two women traveled across Europe, campaigning for Olga to be released as well. But when it became clear that they would not succeed, Leocádia and Lygia fled the growing threat of Nazism and took Anita to Mexico, where they lived in exile.

Olga’s mother-in-law fights for her life

Leocádia Prestes still refused to give up. She contacted the ICRC again and again, requesting information about her daughter-in-law’s whereabouts and state of health. She first got in touch with the organization in 1937, possibly earlier, repeatedly offering to send parcels of clothing and food. Her inquiries are now held by the Arolsen Archives. They show how worried she was about her daughter-in-law. However, perfunctory notes about Olga’s state of health were all she received in reply.

In July 1938, she wrote again. Olga was now being held in Lichtenburg concentration camp. The German Red Cross replied that she was no longer permitted to receive parcels. In the fall of 1939, Olga was deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp. In 1942, the ICRC sent one final letter to the German Red Cross: Suzanne Ferrière, a niece of ICRC co-founder Frédéric Ferrière, inquired about Olga’s condition and asked again whether parcels, or at least official messages, could be sent to her. The response from the German Red Cross was very short: Information about “political” persons could no longer be provided. By that time, Olga was already dead.

At first, Olga was held in the area for “political” prisoners at Ravensbrück. She was later transferred to Block 11 as a Jew. The inhuman ideology of the Nazis ranked Jews even lower than Communists. Survivors later described her as indomitable, a pillar of solidarity and strength. She encouraged the other women to hold on, and she taught classes, drew, and helped the women to understand the world. She cut out small maps from the Völkischer Beobachter – the only newspaper allowed in the concentration camp – and used them to create a tiny multi-page atlas. Today, it is on display at Ravensbrück memorial.

Murdered in Bernburg

“I will remain strong; I am determined to live until the very last moment. I must sleep now so I can be strong tomorrow. I kiss you both for the last time,” she wrote in one of her last surviving letters to her husband. Olga Benario Prestes was probably deported to the Bernburg killing center in April 1942, on one of the last transports to go there from Ravensbrück. Her date of death was officially recorded as April 23.

About 150 km southwest of Berlin, over 1,000 women were murdered in just two months in the gas chamber of the state sanatorium and nursing home in a campaign known as “Aktion 14f13.” The victims included Käthe Leichter and Hedwig (Jocheweth) Feinkuchen. Olga’s mother Eugenie Benario, née Gutmann, was murdered in Theresienstadt in 1943, her brother Otto in Auschwitz in 1944. Her surviving relatives only learned of her death after the war. Her daughter Anita grew up in Mexico and Brazil. She became a historian and devoted her life to preserving the memory of her mother and father, whom she finally met in 1945 after his release.

Remambrance of an indomitable woman

Olga Benario Prestes has become a symbol of international solidarity and resistance against fascism. Artists continue to explore the life and work of this courageous woman. Her name appears on memorial plaques in Germany and Brazil; streets and schools have been named after her.

Further reading (most in German)