Frischmuth Edith (Frischmuth)

Hauer-Frischmuth, Edith Viennese resident Edith Hauer-Frischmuth, the wife of a surgeon, was one-quarter Jewish from the side of her paternal grandmother. After the German annexation of Austria, Hauer-Frischmuth was active in an underground organization that provided Jews with forged identity papers in order to escape from the Reich to other countries. An important part of Hauer-Frischmuth’s contribution was based on her connections with Gestapo members, which she used to acquire official stamps used in creating the forgeries. In one of her visits to the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna, she managed to steal files belonging to those Jews that were slated for arrest that day. Along with other anti-Nazi activists, she warned the Jews in advance. A number of them managed to escape. One of her associates in the underground organization was Monika Taylor, who, because her father was Jewish, was considered a Jew according to the racial laws. One day in 1942, when Hauer-Frischmuth was visiting Taylor’s house, the SS came to arrest Taylor. Taylor ran quickly from the apartment and began looking for a hiding place while Hauer-Frischmuth talked with the SS agents, claimed that no Jews lived there, and directed the SS agents to a neighboring house. Later Hauer-Frischmuth secured a hiding place for Taylor in the home of a friend, and supplied her with all her needs while in hiding. Hauer-Frischmuth put herself into grave danger because hiding Jews was a crime that could have led to deportation to a concentration camp, and eventually to death. She took on this risk at a time when she herself was already wanted by the authorities. Her activities were also a financial burden; she paid all of Taylor’s expenses out of her own pocket. By 1944, the situation had become too dangerous for Hauer-Frischmuth to remain in Vienna. She went into hiding at the home of her husband’s family in the small town of Alt-Aussee in the province of Upper Austria (Northern Austria). Once there, shejoined an underground group supported by England (the Aussee area Resistance Movement), and renewed her activities. She managed to get copies of all the stamps used by the Gestapo in the city of Linz and in the town of Alt-Ausee, and took part in the kidnapping of the first secretary of the Gauleiter (the regional Governor) and three Gestapo agents who, under threat of death, were convinced to cooperate with the underground and to supply them with classified information. Hauer-Frischmuth took Taylor to her new hiding place, and took care of her there until the end of the war. After the war, Taylor married, and continued to live in Vienna. On June 14, 1998, Yad Vashem recognized Edith Hauer-Frischmuth as Righteous Among the Nations.