Olga

by Fernando Morais

Published 31 May 1990
This is the story of Olga Benario, German Jew and Communist activist, trained by the Red Guard, who married the charismatic leader of the Brazilian Communist Party and who, after a failed uprising in Rio, was arrested and deported to Nazi Germany as a "gift" to Hitler. Her letters from prison, and her descriptions of her daughter and of the happiness she feels with her, reveal a woman of action and courage, now behind bars, expressing an intense and enduring love for both husband and daughter. Olga's short and dramatic life was an example of unwavering strength and determination in her commitment to the workers' cause and against social injustice, and later against the evil unleashed by the Nazis and their allies. She was murdered in Ravensbruck in 1942.