Vilma Steindling
Steindling, Ruth & Erdheim, Claudia256 pages with numerous illustrations
February 2017
Vilma Steindling
FROM ORPHAN TO RESISTANCE FIGHTER
At eight years old, Vilma Steindling arrives at the Jewish orphanage in Vienna’s 19th district. She becomes politically aware at just sixteen and joins the Young Communist League. In 1937, the young woman follows her partner Arthur Kreindel to Paris. During France’s occupation by Nazi Germany she becomes involved in the so-called »girls’ work« of the Résistance. In 1942, she is denounced and arrested, moved to the concentration camp in Auschwitz and survives the death march to the concentration camp Ravensbrück. In the autumn of 1945, Vilma returns to Vienna and only then learns that her partner was murdered in Dachau. This book retraces the journey of a courageous woman who put her life on the line and never spoke much about the suffering she had to endure. The authors also deal with the effects this had on her children and grandchildren in a very personal approach.
- A daughter tracing her mother’s footsteps
- A life for a political conviction
- The „girls’ work” in the Résistance: a report of fate