- Judith Auer
Judith Auer, née Vallenthin (
19 September 1905 –27 October 1944 ) was a resistance fighter against the Nazi régime inGermany .Life
Auer was born in
Zurich . After her parents' untimely deaths, Judith was brought up by a well-to-doJew ish family. She completed her "Abitur " and began studies inmusic in the hopes of becoming apianist .In 1924, when she was a student, she joined the Communist Youth League of Germany, and the next year, she moved to Berlin. There she met and married
Erich Auer , a functionary in theCommunist Party of Germany (KPD), in 1926. In 1927, she joined the KPD. In 1928, Auer went with her husband toMoscow , and worked there atComintern 's offices.In 1929, her daughter Ruth was born. To earn some money, Auer learned
typing andshorthand . She took a job at a KPD establishment.After
Hitler seized power in Germany in 1933 and the KPD was banned by the new régime, Auer eventually found herself working forAEG at theOberspree Cable Works , first as a shorthand typist, and later as a buying agent. It was here that Auer first came into contact with the resistance group aroundFritz Plön , a welder, who himself had contacts with the resistance group aroundAnton Saefkow ,Franz Jacob ,Bernhard Bästlein andKarl Klodt .Auer managed her resistance group's finances and used business trips to do courier work, especially with a view to establishing links with resistance fighters in
Thuringia . She also hid Franz Jacob in her flat for several months after he fled fromHamburg .On
7 July 1944 , Judith Auer was arrested at her workplace. She was sentenced at theVolksgerichtshof together withBruno Hämmerling and Franz Schmidt to death. Auer was hanged atPlötzensee Prison in Berlin on27 October 1944.In
East Germany , Judith Auer was honoured by having many streets named after her (for instance in Berlin-Lichtenberg ), as well as public institutions.Literature
* "Judith Auer (1905 - 1944). Möge alles schmerzliche nicht umsonst gewesen sein.", Ruth und Günther Hortzschansky, Trafo-Verlag Berlin, 2004
ources
* [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Plotzensee.html Plötzensee Prison]
External links
*
* [http://bda-koepenick.de/verfolgte/judithauer1905.html Judith Auer geb. Vallenthin ] at bda-koepenick.de
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