Austrian Holocaust Survivor ‘Mrs. Gertrude’ Dies At 94

BERLIN (AP) — The Holocaust survivor Gertrude Pressburger, who turned well-known throughout Austria’s 2016 presidential marketing campaign with a video message by which “Mrs. Gertrude” warned of hatred and exclusion triggered by the far proper, has died at 94.

Pressburger died Friday after an extended sickness, her household informed the Austrian press company APA on Saturday.

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen tweeted that “the demise of Gertrude Pressburger fills me with deep unhappiness … Mrs. Pressburger had the braveness to inform her story as a Holocaust survivor. She had the braveness to face by her opinion. To deal with details. To talk the reality.”

Pressburger was born and raised in Vienna, the daughter of a carpenter. Her Jewish household transformed to Catholicism within the early Thirties, however that didn’t maintain them from being persecuted by the Nazis after Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938.

After her father was arrested and tortured by the Nazis’ Gestapo secret police for alleged political exercise, the household was capable of escape to Yugoslavia and later to Italy, APA reported.

In 1944, the household was captured and deported to the Nazis’ Auschwitz demise camp in Germany-occupied Poland, the place her mom and two youthful brothers have been murdered. Her father was additionally killed by the Nazis.

Pressburger returned to Vienna after the conflict, however initially didn’t speak about her horrific sufferings throughout the Holocaust. Ultimately, she determined to open up in regards to the Holocaust and in regards to the antisemitic experiences she suffered in post-war Austria.

“I didn’t come again to Vienna to be oppressed once more. I swear to myself that I can’t put up with something anymore. I’m going to combat with my mouth,” APA quoted her as saying.

Pressburger additionally printed a memoir that she co-wrote with creator Marlene Groihofer. Within the e-book “Gelebt, Erlebt, Ueberlebt” or “Lived, Skilled, Survived” she described her household’s arrival in Auschwitz in 1944.

Her mom and the 2 brothers have been despatched away on a truck. Gertrude herself was despatched in one other course and he or she shortly overpassed her father too. Pressburger continually seemed for her members of the family within the demise camp till a stranger approached her, pointed to the smoke popping out of the chimneys behind the barracks and informed her that each one the folks pushed away on the truck have been gassed and burned already. That, Pressburger, wrote, was the second when she understood that that they had been murdered.

In 2016, Pressburger addressed Austria’s youthful technology in an internet video, warning in opposition to the humiliations and exclusion of minorities amid the far-right rhetoric within the nation’s presidential election. She referred to as on younger Austrians to exit and vote. The video was watched and shared a number of million instances.

“I simply mentioned what I assumed. That’s it. And that hit house. I by no means understood why,” she informed APA afterwards.

Van der Bellen, who’s from the Inexperienced Occasion, later mentioned he was certain her video enchantment had some affect on the election outcome, which noticed him narrowly win solely after a re-run in opposition to the far-right Freedom Occasion candidate Norbert Hofer.

“We’ll by no means know for certain, however that it had an impression, that’s to say an impact, and particularly on younger and really younger folks, I’m satisfied of that,” Van der Bellen mentioned.