Flight and Resistance in National Socialism
Hilda Monte-Olday, a Jewish woman from Vienna, is buried in the protestant cemetery in Feldkirch. The epitaph remembers an “unforgettable comrade” who lived and died “in service of the socialist cause”. The date of her death is marked as April 17, 1945. Barely a month before the end of the war, she was captured and killed at the Liechtenstein border. She was working as a courier for the Austrian underground government and the American Secret Service.
Under high-risk conditions resistance fighters travelled across the border to Nazi Germany to fight the Nazis on the ground. At the same time, people persecuted for their political views or Jewish background fled to Switzerland in hope of safety. In a border region, flight and resistance merge.
Escape routes become routes for organised resistance, helpers become allies in resistance.
This city tour of select spots in Feldkirch retraces the steps of border crossers. It aims to illuminate the fate of many who did not make it and were crushed by the Nazi regime. With the central question of what Hilde Monte was doing in Feldkirch comes the question of how Austrian resistance was organised.