| Olga Benario |
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Olga Benario Prestes ( 1908 – 1942 ) was a German - Brazilian communist militant, born in Munich . Her father was a Social-Democrat lawyer of Jewish origin and her mother was a member of Bavarian high-society. At 15 years she joined the Communist Youth. In 1928 organised the evasion from the Moabit prison of her lover and comrade Otto Braun. Together they arrived in Moscow where she attended the Lenin-School of the Comintern and then worked as an instructor of the Communist Youth International both in the Soviet Union and in France and Great Britain , where she participated in coordinating anti-fascist activities. In 1931 she separated from Otto Braun. In 1934 she was tasked with the return to Brazil of Luis Carlos Prestes . In order to accomplish this mission they had false papers stating they were a Portuguese married couple. By their arrival in Rio De Janeiro in 1935 this became a reality. In January 1936 she and her husband were arrested during the harsh anti-communist campaign declared after the proclamation of the Fascist -like regime of Estado Novo by Getulio Vargas and the failure of the democratic insurrection in November 1935 . Separated from Prestes and pregnant she was delivered to the Gestapo who took her to Germany in September 1936 , despite a massive international campaign. On arrival in the Greater German Reich, she was imprisoned, while in prison, she gave birth to a daughter, Anita Leocádia. After some time her daughter was freed and reunited with her grandmother, Leocádia Prestes. Olga Benario was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp where she was gassed in 1942 in an old psychiatric hospital in Bernburg which had been transformed into an experimental extermination camp. A popular film based on her life (''Olga'') was released in 2004 . She was also the subject of a German documentary ("Olga Benario- ein Leben für die Revolution") in 2004 . A Berlin street also bears her name. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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