Christine Berger-Wagner

I was inconspicuous, I was small, I was slight...

Christine Berger was born in Leoben in 1922 and grew up in poor conditions with her three brothers. After the National Socialist takeover, she was conscripted to forced labour in agriculture, as a nanny and in the weapons industry. From 1942 onwards, she worked at the registration office of the municipality of Leoben. Through her friends from the socialist youth organisation, she began to work for the resistance. When the Gestapo was planning arrests, she looked up the addresses and was therefore able to warn the targeted women and men. At night, she brought provisions to the partisans who were hiding out in the mountains. In July 1944, Christine Berger was arrested by the Gestapo. After being detained for two months and severely abused during the interrogations, she was taken to Ravensbrück on 3 October 1944, together with some of her comrades from Leoben. A month later, her parents were also arrested and deported to concentration camps.

Very simply I was assigned to work. (…) Sepp Filz was at the hospital, and I visited him, and Toni was there as well, and there Sepp said: „Come on, rope in that girl. We can really use her!“ I was inconspicuous, I was small, I was slight, who has second thoughts with someone like that. So I got into illegal work. First, I did small things, and then it got more and more. In the end, I was the courier, because I was the only connection, city and the woods...

The communist anti-fascist resistance in Leoben

In 1942, some resistance fighters in Styria decided to take up arms. In 1943, the illegal women’s organisation numbered over 110.. They risked their lives organising food, clothes, shoes, medicine, money and shelter, as well as weapons and ammunition for the partisans. As couriers, women maintained the connection between local resistance groups as far as Southern Carinthia, thus creating the conditions for trans-regional cooperation.