Ways to Ravensbrück

Anna Gadol-Peczenik (1911–1945)

I often think of her, she loved life so much...Christine Berger-Wagner

Anna Gadol was born to Jewish parents in Sofia in 1911, and grew up in Vienna in a well-to-do family. When she was twenty, she married the writer Hermann Peczenik. In 1932, she joined the KPÖ (Austrian Communist Party) and started, amongst other things, developing a women's organization. After being arrested several times in 1934, the couple was deported from Austria. After some time in Prague, they volunteered for the International Brigades in Spain in 1936. In 1939, Anna Gadol-Peczenik joined the French Résistance. She was arrested in Paris in 1944. The National Socialists deported her to Ravensbrück with an execution order. In an attempt to save her, comrades assigned her to a transport to the camp of Magdeburg/ Polte. In spite of this, Anna Gadol-Peczenik was murdered in the Buchenwald camp early in 1945.

"She was a really fantastic woman … In the camp in Magdeburg we sat on the pallet at night and she told us: „Girls, dress properly! Try to fix yourselves up a little, so you're not so low. It is depressing for the others, if one is so miserable. (…) Don't let them beat you down! You'll see, everything is going to be all right, the war will be over soon. Hold out!"
Cilli Muchitsch (source: Berger/Holzinger/Podgornik/Trallori: Ich geb Dir einen Mantel, dass Du ihn noch in Freiheit tragen kannst, Wien 1987 – I will give you a coat so you can wear it in freedom)

"What is going to become of us, Anni? And she answered: „For me, it is a race against death." For a long time before she was called, she often had to stand for punishment for sabotage. I will never forget it, when the whole camp street was empty … and only lonesome Anni Peczenik stood punishment. Anni Peczenik tried to escape, (…) but she didn't succeed."
Christine Berger-Wagner, written report, Leoben, May 14th, 1965 (source: DÖW)

Wedding photo Nurse in Spanish Civil War Prison Rossauerlände Speech page 1 Speech page 2 Book by Hilde Spiel

"A week before Christmas 1944 … (…) Anni said to me: „Christl, now I am finished … stay a good girl and keep our girls together. This task goes to you now." (…) And soon after, another prisoner wore the brown dress with white dots."
Christine Berger-Wagner, written report, Leoben, May 14th, 1965 (source: DÖW)

"She really lived what we only pretended. She hadn't yet turned twenty, like me at the time, when she left her parents' house, a bourgeois renegade ..."
Excerpt from: Hilde Spiel: Rückkehr nach Wien. Ein Tagebuch, written 1946 (Return to Vienna. A diary)