Helene Kuchar

Hitler's executive

27 March 1906 in Bad Eisenkappel/Železna Kapla – 24 February 1985 in Bad Eisenkappel/Železna Kapla The Carinthian Slovene Helene Kuchar (née Haderlap) ran a farm in Eisenkappel/Železna Kapla with her husband Peter. After the "Anschluss", Peter Kuchar was drafted into the Wehrmacht. In 1943, Helene Kuchar moved with her two children to the farm of her brother Miha Haderlap. At that time, the Osvobodilna Fronta (OF, Liberation Front of the Slovene People) in Carinthia had already begun its resistance against the Nazi regime. Helene Kuchar (called "Jelka"), together with others, founded the Anti-fascist Women’s Front (Antifaschistische Frauenfront/Antifašitična fronta žega). She collected food for the partisans, fed them and hid them. In February 1945, she was arrested. In the Gestapo prison in Klagenfurt, she shared a cell with a dozen other women, the only furnishing of which was a bucket to relieve themselves. The imprisoned women – mainly Soviet forced labourers – were subjected to brutal interrogations as well as verbal and physical sexual violence.