Jewish-German Communist activist Olga Benario Prestes was the subject of a news report by journalist Zoe Sullivan that aired on The World radio on November 21, 2024. You can listen to it here. The World is an independent newsroom with a public radio program that “crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter.”
Olga was arrested in Brazil in 1936 while participating in a failed communist revolution to overthrow the government. Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas deported her to Nazi Germany on a Nazi ship. She was incarcerated in the Barnimstrasse prison for women in Berlin and on November 27, 1936, she gave birth there to her daughter Anita. Her baby was rescued, became a history professor in Brazil, and has just celebrated her 88th birthday. However, Olga was sent on the first transport to Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp. The radio reportage didn’t say that she, along with other Jewish political prisoners, was murdered by the Nazis in the spring of 1942.
We were pleased to be interviewed as part of this program that introduces Olga to a wide audience. For more information about Olga Benario Prestes, see The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp (Saidel, University of Wisconsin Press) and https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/prestes-olga-benario.