Olga Benário, a Communist revolutionary, was born to a successful Munich Jewish family on February 12, 1908. Though she was executed at only age 34, Benário had a fruitful career as a revolutionary for the Communist International. She carried out this work even in the midst of Nazism in her home country and fascism abroad. 

At age fifteen, Benário joined the Communist Youth International in Munich, affiliated with the Communist International (Comintern). She went on to work with the organization across Europe, eventually becoming an instructor to young members and working to coordinate the group’s anti-fascist activities. She enjoyed early success and rose through the ranks as a teenager and young adult. She was imprisoned for the first time at eighteen and ultimately left home to commit herself to revolutionary work.  

Benário received military training in the Soviet Union and was then sent by the Comintern on a mission to Brazil to aid Brazilian communist leader Luis Carlos Prestes. Prestes and Benário were married around 1935. After Prestes was involved in a failed communist coup in Brazil, he and Benário were forced to go into hiding, but they were arrested in 1936. At the time, Benário was pregnant with her first and only child. 

Following a long court case in Brazil, Prestes was imprisoned and Benário was ultimately forcibly returned to Nazi Germany, where she was immediately imprisoned. This deportation was ordered by President Getúlio Vargas, perhaps in an attempt to appeal to the Brazilian fascist movement that he hoped to gain the support of. Antisemitism was a likely cause of Benário’s treatment and deportation. by Brazilian officials. While jailed, she gave birth to a daughter, Anita, who was taken in by Prestes’ mother. 

After giving birth, Benário was sent first to the Lichtenburg concentration camp and then to Ravensbrück, where she became an inspiration to the other inmates. While imprisoned, she worked on a covert newspaper, organized methods of providing extra food to sickly inmates, and made a secret atlas for the prisoners, which is held in the Ravensbrück archives today. In 1942, Benário was murdered at Bernburg Euthanasia Centre as a political prisoner. Years later, she is remembered with acclaim as the model of the female revolutionary. 

Sources:

“Olga Benário Prestes.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Ben%C3%A1rio_Prestes. 

Saidel, Rochelle G.. "Olga Benário Prestes." Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 27 February 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on January 29, 2025), https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/prestes-olga-benario. 

Salomão, Graziela. “The Life of Revolutionary Olga Benario Prestes.” Epoca. https://web.archive.org/web/20141227231522/http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Epoca/0,6993,EPT794517-1655,00.html.