Olga Bernario (1908-42)
Olga Bernario (ne Prestes) was from Munich and was born into a Jewish family. At the age of 15 she joined the Communist Youth Organisation. She later moved to Berlin, to Neu-Kölln and had a relationship with Otto Braun, also a communist. He was arrested by the political police in 1928 and, when visiting him in a prison in Berlin, she successfully freed him along with other communists. They were both put on the wanted list and they fled to Moscow, where Olga underwent military training. She moved back to Germany and acted as a spy, also doing work for the communist party in Argentina, Great Britain and Brazil, where she immigrated in 1934.
She was part of a group that was to organise the revolution that happend in 1935. The government suppressed the revolution severely, leading to the death of over a hundred revolutionaries and many leaders of the revolution were arrested, some of whom were executed or died due to torture.
Meanwhile, she had got into a relationship with Luis Prestes and she became pregnant. The Brazilian government decided to extradite her to Germany in 1937. An international protest took place to try to save her, but it proved unsuccessful. As she was wanted in Germany, she was put in prison straightaway. She was in a cell which had no window and it was in that surroundings that she gave birth. She called the baby Anita and cared for her in that same cell, before one day her baby was taken from her and eventually made its way to Brazil, where she was cared for by the mother of Luis Prestes, before being looked after by the father, Luis, upon his release.
Olga however was sent to the womens concentration camp in Ravensbrück and developed good contacts with her fellow prisoners. One day however she was selected to be executed and was killed in the gas chamber there.
I learned all this as I went to watch a film about Olga last Thursday in the 'Olga Bernario Exhibition' in Neu-Kölln. You can watch a short trailer to film about her if you click on the title above. While it is in Portuguese, it is worth watching for the pictures. It is not the film that I saw. The one I saw was more restrained.
