Description
Object description
Austrian civilian nurse in Vienna and Styria, Austria, 1938-1943; arrested and imprisoned in Graz Prison, Austria, 1943; member of Austrian Resistance in Styria, Austria, 1943-1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Styria, Austria, 1914-1938: family; education; employment. Recollections of period as nurse in Vienna and Styria, Austria, 1938-1943: her disrespect for Nazi flag in polling booth, 1938; Schutzstaffel (SS) orders to hang swastika flag from maternity hospital, 1938; her marriage to Austrian Nazi; her move from Vienna to Styria, 1941; her refusal to join Nazi women's group in Styria; aid she gave to two shot down Royal Air Force airmen; search of her home by police for Royal Air Force airmen; voluntary work for Red Cross in Styria. Recollections of arrest and imprisonment in Graz, Austria, 1943: her arrest for aiding Royal Air Force evaders, 1/5/1943; nature of imprisonment in Graz Prison from 5/1943.
REEL 2 Continues: interrogation in Graz Prison; monetary offer made to her to give information on evaders; release and discovery of her ransacked house, 1943; beating received from Gestapo for not providing information. Recollections of period as member of Austrian Resistance in Styria, Austria, 1943-1945: initial contact with resistance; mission to Czechoslovakia; aiding shot down Allied airmen in Styria, summer 1944; her arrest for aiding Allied airmen, 19/11/1944; imprisonment in open camp in Graz, 11/1944; bombing of camp and subsequent escape of prisoners.
REEL 3 Continues: medical treatment after bombing of camp in Graz, 11/1944; accommodation in rented pig sty on release; advice to escaped Allied prisoners of war to go back to their camp; receiving radio crystal set from resistance; orders to be passed by her for the destruction of bridges over River Mura at Mureck and Wildon, 4/1945; arrival of Soviet Army troops and their behaviour, 5/1945; threat by Soviet Army troops to shoot her as collaborator and how she was saved by Soviet officer.
REEL 4 Continues: how she met her future husband Sergeant-Major Hill who found her in pig sty; story of how she entered GB and received hospital treatment in Oxford, 1949-1950; how her future husband Sergeant Major Hill sought her out and married her five years after the end of Second World War; question of why she helped shot down Allied airmen during Second World War.