Marianne Bradt

Marianne was with two other friends active in a communist resistance group and tried to destabilise the Wehrmacht.

Marianne Bradt
Marianne Bradt

Marianne Bradt (°29/11/1919, Berlin) left Germany in 1936 and migrated via Switzerland to Belgium. On 23 January 1936 she arrives in Brussels, where she indicates that she is not a political refugee. Because she does not have the right visa, she is not allowed to stay in Belgium and is asked to leave the country by the end of March at the latest. The Belgian authorities arranged for her return to Germany via Herbestal, in the German-speaking East Cantons, but Marianne managed to escape deportation. With her parents she settled in the Noordstraat in Brussels. In 1937 she moved to Brugmannlaan, also in Brussels.

In May 1940 Nazi Germany invades Belgium. Marianne joins the Österreichisches Freiheitsfront (Austrian Freedom Front) and together with Lotte Sontag and Hertha Ligeti tries to destabilise the Wehrmacht and spread anti-Nazi propaganda. The three young women were involved in the illegal distribution of a clandestine anti-fascist pamphlet to soldiers: Die Wahrheit. The author of this pamphlet is philosopher and journalist Hans Maier, better known as Jean Améry. On 23 July Marianne was finally arrested and imprisoned in the Sint-Gillis prison where she was accused of “espionage and membership of a partisan group”. Her friends were arrested and imprisoned around the same time. Marianne, Lotte and Hertha were subjected to violent interrogations by the Sicherheitspolizei-Sicherheitsdienst (Sipo-SD) in the Sint-Gillis prison. On 2 November 1943 the three young Jewish women were transferred to the Dossin Barracks. Here Marianne was also locked up in a cell and subjected to further violent interrogations because of her acts of resistance. Finally Marianne, Lotte and Hertha were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on transport XXIII on 15 January 1944. Marianne did not survive the war. After the evacuation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 23 January 1945 she ends up in Ravensbrück. After a month she was sent to Machow where she died of starvation around 10 May 1945.

Source: Laurence Schram: Dossin de wachtkamer van Auschwitz, Lannoo, 2018, 209-210.

Kaatje Langens