Kunke, Steffi (1908–1942)

Austrian teacher who, with her husband, was involved in anti-fascist underground work in Vienna during the Nazi occupation. Born Stefanie Jellinek in Vienna, Austria, on December 26, 1908; died of typhus in Auschwitz in December 1942; daughter of Marie (Ourednik) Jellinek and Ignaz Jellinek; married Hans Kunke (1906–1940).

Steffi Kunke was in many ways a typical Viennese Socialist of her generation, in that her working-class parents Marie Ourednik Jellinek and Ignaz Jellinek were of Czech background, and, though their formal education had ended early, were interested in politics and the arts. Steffi's mother was a hard-working dressmaker, and her father, who worked for the municipal brewery, was an amateur poet who was proud to see some of his works published in the Heimgarten, a popular journal edited by the famous Styrian folk-poet Peter Rosegger. Born in Vienna on December 26, 1908, young Steffi loved children and prepared in the 1920s for a teaching career. But the darkening political clouds of the early 1930s dictated that she and her husband Hans Kunke become increasingly active in the educational work of the Young Socialist movement. When the Social Democratic government of Vienna was overthrown in February 1934, the creation of the Dollfuss dictatorship only strengthened the Kunkes' resolve to fight Fascism. Hans was Jewish, and both he and Steffi regarded Nazism as the great enemy of humanity because of its racism and glorification of war. Though Steffi's work as a teacher gave her immense satisfaction, her dangerous assignments as the leader of the youth department of the Revolutionary Socialist underground became the core of her life.

Steffi and Hans Kunke had been arrested in July 1936 by the Viennese police for their political activities, but they were both free at the time of the Nazi Anschluss in March 1938. Now facing a much stronger and more cunning foe, they nevertheless continued their underground work. By 1938, the Kunkes had been able to create a well-organized underground Socialist youth movement in Vienna and the surrounding province of Lower Austria. But the Nazi takeover represented an infinitely greater threat to their own survival, and in the spring of 1938 they began to prepare to emigrate from Austria. False documents had already been procured by the Revolutionary Socialist leader Josef Buttinger, who was married to Muriel Gardiner , a wealthy American-born sympathizer of the Austrian underground. But instead of departing immediately, Steffi and Hans made a fateful decision, to wait until a close colleague, Ferdinand Tschürtsch, had received his own papers. All three were arrested in May 1938, with Steffi being sent to the Lichtenburg concentration camp while Hans and Tschürtsch were transported to Buchenwald near Weimar. The terrible conditions at Buchenwald soon proved fatal for Ferdinand Tschürtsch, who suffered from a spinal deformity and had never been in robust health. Hans Kunke was physically stronger, but he eventually broke under the intense psychological torture, committing suicide in the quarry of Buchenwald in October 1940.

After a period at Lichtenburg, Steffi was transferred to the women's camp of Ravensbrück, where she displayed extraordinary courage. During its years of existence (1939–45), Ravensbrück held 132,000 women and children, of whom 92,000 died. While there, she served as secretary (Blockschreiberin) for the camp's political prisoners. Her fellow prisoner Rosa Jochmann recalls in her memoirs how bravely Steffi Kunke bore the intense pain of 25 strokes of the lash after she refused to denounce a fellow inmate. The Nazi camp officials could not break her spirit despite two years of repeated solitary confinement and extreme physical punishment. As a consequence, she was sent to Auschwitz, where she died of typhus in December 1942.

sources:

Buttinger, Joseph. In the Twilight of Socialism: A History of the Revolutionary Socialists of Austria. NY: Frederick A. Praeger, 1953.

Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes, Vienna, files 3188 and 3675.

Institut für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Vienna, "Biografisches Lexikon der österreichischen Frau."

Kerschbaumer, Marie Therese. Der weibliche Name des Widerstands: Sieben Berichte. Olten: Walter Verlag, 1980.

Neugebauer, Wolfgang. Bauvolk der kommenden Welt: Geschichte der sozialistischen Jugendbewegung in Österreich. Vienna: Europaverlag, 1975.

Spiegel, Tilly. Frauen und Mädchen im österreichischen Widerstand. Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1967.

Sporrer, Maria, and Herbert Steiner, eds. Rosa Jochmann: Zeitzeugin. 3rd ed. Vienna: Europaverlag, 1987.

Widerstand und Verfolgung in Wien 1934–1945: Eine Dokumentation. 2nd ed. 3 vols. Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1984.

John Haag , Associate Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia