Friessnegg Anna (Stecher); Daughter: Manzer Anna (Friessnegg); Brother: Stecher Edi ; Husband: Ludwig

Friessnegg, Ludwig Friessnegg, Anna Manzer, Anna (Friessnegg) Stecher, Edi Anna Malvina Rosenberg, born in 1919, lived in Budapest, Hungary together with her husband, Hermann Rosenberg, who changed their family name to Deutsch. In 1944, Anna was sent in a transport of Jews to Vienna. During this period, almost all the men in Austria had been drafted into the army, and Hungarian Jews were “loaned” to the Reich to make up for the shortfall of industrial and municipal workers. Deutsch was assigned to clear the rubble left behind in the city streets after aerial bombardments. Jews like Deutsch, who were forced to work at hard manual labor, and received very small food rations, were always hungry, and turned to passersby begging for food. It was in this way that Deutsch made contact with Anna Friessnegg, who lived in Vienna with her husband Ludwig. Both were devout Catholics. Anna Friessnegg devoted herself to Deutsch, giving her food on a regular basis when the guards were not looking. One day, Friessnegg gave Deutsch a note with her address, saying that Deutsch should contact her if she were ever in danger. In February 1945, the Hungarian Jews in Vienna were transferred on foot to the Mauthausen concentration camp in one of the Nazis’ notorious death marches. Before the march began, Deutsch escaped her labor unit, and arrived at the Friessnegg home. The couple took her in and hid her in their coal cellar until the end of the war. The Friessneggs, along with their daughter Anna Friessnegg (later Manzer) and Mrs. Friessnegg’s brother, Edi Stecher, took on the dangerous task of hiding and caring for Deutsch, despite the fact that hiding Jews was a crime. When Vienna was being bombed by Allied air forces, the Friessnegg family even brought Deutsch with them to a public shelter, although she had no appropriate papers, an act that greatly increased the danger that they would be found out. The Friessneggs took care of Deutsch at great personal sacrifice, sharingtheir meager food supplies, in spite of their poverty, during a time when food was scarce. Deutsch survived the war and returned to Budapest. Except for her husband, who was drafted to a Hungarian military labor-service battalion and survived, Deutsch’s entire family perished. Later, the Deutsch couple immigrated to Israel. On August 29, 1984, Yad Vashem recognized Ludwig Friessnegg, Anna Friessnegg, Anna Manzer and Edi Stecher as Righteous Among the Nations.