Olga Benário she was a German revolutionary who was prominent in the Communist Party of Germany and the Soviet Union. After receiving a mission from that party from Moscow, she came to Brazil with Luís Carlos Prestes and participated in the Communist Intent 1935. As a consequence, Olga was arrested and deported to Germany, where she died in the gas chamber in 1942.
Olga Benário's youth and militancy>
Olga Gutmann Benário was born on February 12, 1908, in the German city of Munich. She was from a wealthy local family, and her father, Leo Benário, was an influential lawyer and a prominent member of the German Social Democratic Party. Olga's father was also known for trying to help the city's poor.
Olga Benário's contact with communist-oriented groups began at age 15, when she joined the Grupo Schwabing , which was formed by young people under the age of 18 linked to the Communist Youth. A year later, at age 16, Olga moved to Berlin with her boyfriend, Professor Otto Braun.
In Berlin, Olga played an important role in organizing communist agitation and fighting the growth of the extreme right led by the Nazi Party in the country. In that city, she became Berlin's Secretary of Agitation and Propaganda and thus became one of the leading figures in the German Communist Party.
The young revolutionary was arrested in 1926, accused of agitating against the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). This period was Germany's first republican and democratic experience. Once arrested, Olga was constantly interrogated for information about her boyfriend, Otto Braun. She was imprisoned from October to December 1926.
As Otto Braun was accused of high treason (a serious charge, therefore), Olga, on orders from the German Communist Party, planned the attack on the Moabit prison, where he was being held. in Berlin. The Attack on Moabit Prison happened in April 1928 and turned Olga into one of Germany's most wanted figures, with a reward of five thousand marks (corresponding to two years' salary in Germany) to anyone she provided information leading to her capture.
Accused of high treason and realizing that her life was at risk, Olga fled to the Soviet Union through the use of false documents. In Moscow, she was widely praised for her militancy and quickly rose through the ranks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In that country, the communist received intellectual training in Marxist theory and military training.
In 1934, Olga accepted a mission of great importance from the Communist International:escorting the revolutionary Luís Carlos Prestes safely to Brazil. The Communist International was an entity of the Communist Party responsible for the international dissemination of Soviet Communism. Luís Carlos Prestes was a well-known figure in Brazil because of his performance in Coluna Prestes.
Olga's Coming to Brazil
Olga's mission was to ensure the safety of Luís Carlos Prestes. So, based on her knowledge and experience, she planned a long trip to Brazil in order to leave no traces. Olga Benário was known in the Soviet Union as Olga Sinek and, during the trip, she pretended to be Prestes' wife. The two staged being on their honeymoon.
The arrival of Luís Carlos Prestes to Brazil happened because of Moscow's interests in carrying out a revolution on the left in the country. This revolution would be organized by Prestes at the head of the National Liberation Alliance (ANL), a left-wing group that had strong popular support in 1934, and by the Partido Comunista do Brasil (PCB). The intention was to overthrow the government of Getúlio Vargas.
During the trip, Olga and Prestes traveled around the world using false documents, and the disguise became real when the two fell in love. Once in Brazil, Prestes organized the Communist Intent in November 1935. In this movement, left-wing military uprisings took place in three Brazilian cities:Natal , Reef and Rio from January . This action, however, failed, and Prestes was arrested along with Olga in March 1936.
As soon as she was arrested, Olga announced her pregnancy and that her daughter's father was Prestes. During her arrest, the militant was interrogated several times to give information about the communist groups existing in Brazil. As she did not cooperate, Getúlio Vargas decided to extradite her to Germany. The deportation of Olga was extremely problematic because, in addition to being a communist, she was Jewish and, in 1936, it was already known about the treatment that Jews received in Germany.
Deportation and death of Olga Benário
Olga Benário was deported to Germany on the ship La Coruña on September 23, 1936. The ship she was on arrived in Hamburg on October 18 of the same year. Olga was received by the Gestapo (the German secret police) and was immediately transferred to the women's prison on Barnimstrasse in Berlin.
On Barnimstrasse , Olga's daughter was born on November 27, 1936 and named Anita Leocádia Prestes . After strong international pressure, the German government agreed to hand over Olga and Prestes' daughter to Leocádia Prestes, the mother of Luís Carlos Prestes. Prestes' family tried to release Olga, however the Nazi government refused to release her.
From this, Olga was transferred to various concentration and extermination camps, such as Lichtenburg , Ravensbrück and Bernburg . In these places, she was subjected to forced labor and terrible living conditions, common in Nazi concentration camps. The communist's fate was sealed in Bernburg, where she was killed in the gas chamber on April 23, 1942. Olga Benário's family only had confirmation of her death after the end of the Second World War.
* Image credits:360b and Shutterstock
by Daniel Neves
Graduate in History