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Olga Benário Prestes (February 12, 1908 – April 23, 1942) was a German-Brazilian communist militant. ==Life== Olga was born in Munich as Olga Gutmann Benário, to a Jewish family.〔()〕 Her father, Leo Benário, was a Social-Democrat lawyer, and her mother, Eugenie (Gutmann), was a member of Bavarian high-society. In 1923, aged fifteen, she joined the Communist Youth International and in 1928 helped organize her lover and comrade Otto Braun's escape from Moabit prison.〔Teresa A. Meade, ''A History of Modern Latin America: 1800 to the Present'', Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4051-2050-0 , page 186〕 She went to Czechoslovakia and from there, reunited with Braun, to Moscow, where Benário attended the Lenin-School of the Comintern and then worked as an instructor of the Communist Youth International, in the Soviet Union and in France and Great Britain, where she participated in coordinating anti-fascist activities. She parted from Otto Braun in 1931. After her stay in Britain, where she was briefly arrested,〔Nigel West, ''MASK: MI5's penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain''. New York: Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0-415-35145-6 ,page 23〕 Olga attended a course in the Zhukovsky Military Academy, something that led her to be charged in rightist histories with being an agent of Soviet military intelligence.〔For instance in the accusatory, anticommunist history of the 1935 uprising in Brazil by TV Globo journalist William Waack, ''Camaradas'', São Paulo, Cia. das Letras, 1993, ISBN 85-7164-342-3 , page 94 (a version which is repeated by Shawn C. Smallman, ''Fear & memory in the Brazilian army and society, 1889-1954'', University of North Carolina Press, 2002 page 51) ; Waack admits, however, that according to existing archival evidence, the actual appartenance of Olga to Soviet intelligence is only a possibility, albeit a strong one: ''Camaradas'', page 100〕 Be that as it may, due to her military training, in 1934 she was tasked with helping the return to Brazil of Luís Carlos Prestes, to whom she was assigned as a bodyguard.〔Katherine Morris, ed., ''Odyssey of exile: Jewish women flee the Nazis for Brazil''. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8143-2563-7 , page 126〕 In order to accomplish this mission, false papers were created stating that they were a Portuguese married couple. By the time they arrived at Rio de Janeiro in 1935, this cover had become a reality, as the couple had fallen in love. After a failed insurrection in November 1935, Benário and her husband went into hiding, and after barely escaping a police raid at Ipanema,〔Having as an unwitting witness the writer Pedro Nava, who wrote about the episode in his memoir ''Galo-das-trevas: as doze velas imperfeitas''. São Paulo: Ateliê Editorial, 2003, ISBN 85-7480-160-7 , 451〕 they were both eventually arrested in January 1936, during the harsh anti-communist campaign declared after Getúlio Vargas had proclaimed martial law and was already plotting the 1937 coup that would eventually lead to the institution of the fascist-like ''Estado Novo'' régime. Pregnant and separated from Prestes, Benário clung to her alias, only to have her real identity disclosed by Brazilian diplomats, working hand-in-hand with the Gestapo.〔João Henrique Botteri Negrão, ''Selvagens e Incendiários: O Discurso Anticomunista do Governo Vargas''. São Paulo: Humanitas/FAPESP, 2005, ISBN 85-98292-74-5 ,page 163〕 Her lawyers attempted to avoid extradition by means of a habeas corpus at the Brazilian Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal), based on her pregnancy, because extradition would have left a newborn Brazilian national in the power of a foreign government. As Brazilian law forbids the extradition of nationals,〔Carmen Tiburcio, ''The human rights of aliens under international and comparative law''. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, ISBN 90-411-1550-1 ,pages 132/133〕 Olga's lawyers expected to win time until Olga gave birth on Brazilian soil to an ''ipso facto'' Brazilian citizen - irrespective of the child's paternity, which remained legally doubtful in the absence of evidence for Olga's and Prestes' marriage〔Vargas' propagandists at the time sustained that Prestes' mariage was a sham, a cover for the fact that Olga had been posted besides him as a liaison for the Soviet political police: Robert M. Levine, ''Father of the poor?: Vargas and his era''. Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-521-58528-7 , page 43〕 - something that would have rendered extradition quite unlikely.〔Stanley E. Hilton, ''Brazil and the Soviet Challenge 1917-1947''. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991, ISBN 0-292-70781-9 , pages 81/86.〕 The plea, however, was speedily quashed, the ''rapporteur''-justice alleging that ''habeas corpus'' was superseded by martial law〔Paulo Fernando Silveira, ''O morro das sete voltas: guerrilha na serra da Saudade''. Curitiba: Juruá, 2008, ISBN 978-85-362-2058-1 ,page 100〕 and that Olga's deportation was justified as "an alien noxious to public order".〔Emília Viotti da Costa, ''O Supremo Tribunal Federal e a construção da cidadania''.São Paulo: UNESP, 2006, page 90〕 She was then, despite an international campaign, taken back to Germany in September 1936, the commander of the German liner that took her having cancelled scheduled stops in non-German European ports, therefore foiling communist attempts at rescuing her.〔Nigel West, ''MASK'', page 24.〕 On arrival, she was put in prison, where she gave birth to a daughter, Anita Leocádia. The child was subsequently released into the care of her grandmother, Leocádia Prestes. Olga was eventually sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp and from there to Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in 1942, where she was gassed (see: Action T4). As Vargas joined the United Nations and Brazil entered World War II against the Axis, Luís Carlos Prestes, the father of Anita Leocádia and former partner of Olga Benário, eventually struck a political partnership with him in order to avoid Vargas' immediate ousting in 1945, which was demanded by his more rightist domestic opponents, as well as by the US, represented by Ambassador Adolf Berle .〔 David Rock, ed., ''Latin America in the 1940's: War and Postwar Transitions''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, ISBN 0-520-08416-0 , pages 152 and 157〕 This move was in line with Popular Front Communist policies of the time:〔According to the explanation offered by Prestes in a later broadcast interview: Paulo Markun, ''O melhor do Roda viva: Poder''. São Paulo: Conex, 2005, ISBN 85-7594-054-6 ,pages 52/53〕 Prestes argued that, by declaring himself against Vargas' immediate resignation, he wanted to avoid a "redemptory coup" as well as to take a stand against "the decrepit remains of reaction".〔David Rock,''Latin America in the 1940s" ,152〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Olga Benário Prestes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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