The audacious angel of Auschwitz

Magda Hellinger not only survived Nazi tyranny and torture, but with immense courage she risked her own life to save hundreds of women inside the infamous concentration camp. This is her story.

- DAVID BREWSTER

On a cold early spring morning in March 1942, Magda Hellinger’s kindergarten was its usual hive of activity, parents dropping their children, hanging bags, and removing thick, snow-dusted coats. However, on this day there was just one topic of conversation. During the night, notices had been plastered up all over their town of Michalovce, in eastern Czechoslovakia. The signs declared that all unmarried Jewish women aged 16 or over were to report to the town hall that evening. Most of the kindergarten’s staff fell into this category, as did 25year-old Magda.

Magda wasn’t too concerned. Her kindergarten was the only one in town, so she should qualify for an exemption. When she got home that night, she tried to mollify her anxious mother. If the worst happened, she would join the other girls at the Bata shoe factory, where rumour had it they would be sent. She would be home in a few months.

That afternoon, Magda was escorted to the town hall by members of the Hlinka Guard, the Slovak government militia. She did have an exemption, but her papers had been sold by a corrupt official. The next morning, she and 120 other local young women waited to board the buses that would take them away. “When my mother saw me she broke from the group and ran to me,” writes Magda in her memoir. “Her face creased with tears, she held my head between her hands … Forcing myself to stay composed, I waved to my parents as I climbed onto the bus. It was the last time I would ever see them.”