Ella Reiner studied first law and then medicine. She joined the Social Democratic Workers’ Party in 1926, and married the doctor Kurt Lingens in 1938. Their son Peter Michael was born in 1939.
Ella and Kurt Lingens rejected National Socialism. During the November pogrom of 1938 and after the deportations began in 1942, they took in persecuted Jews. They also helped Jewish people to escape.
With their acquaintance Karl Motesiczky, they prepared the escape of a group of Polish Jews to Switzerland in 1942. However, a Jewish escape helper betrayed their plans to the Gestapo. Before being arrested in Vienna on October 13, 1942 for “aiding Jews,” they were able to take their three-year-old son to safety.
Ella Lingens was transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp after four months in police custody. She worked as a medic in the camp sick bay under the SS doctor Josef Mengele. She was liberated from Dachau concentration camp in April 1945.
In March 1964, she testified as a witness during the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial. The Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem honored her as Righteous Among the Nations in 1980.
Ella and Kurt Lingens with their son Peter Michael shortly before their arrest, 1942. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Gestapo photo of Ella Lingens, arrested on October 13, 1942. Source: Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv
German edition of Ella Lingens’ book “Prisoners of Fear,” Berlin 2005 Source: Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes, Wien
Ella Lingens testifying at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, March 1964. Source: Bildarchiv der KPÖ, Wien
Israeli president Ezer Weizman greeting Ella Lingens as a member of a delegation of fifty Righteous Among the Nations, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the state of Israel, May 6, 1998. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
