Inside of Nazi prisons during the Second World War, there were many executions that took
place using devices such as the guillotine.
The German guillotine or the fallbeil as it was known took the heads of thousands of people
who resisted and defied Hitler and his policies.
Ordinary people became the victims of execution for nothing more than having different ideas
and refusing to conform to the wishes of the Nazi party.
Many of these resistors became known for their bravery, but they were then subjected to the
People’s Court, where virulent Nazi judges would screech and scream at them, before they
were taken into the execution chambers.
The stories of many of these people today remain forgotten, but they deserve to be told.
Today we look at the execution of the guillotined female opera singer, who lost her life inside
of Prague and a prison there.
Join us today as we look at her story, and remember as always to support our channel,
please make sure to subscribe.
Marianne Golz-Goldlust was born as Maria Belokosztolskzy in Vienna Austria in January 1895.
Her family were catholic, and her mother was Czech and her father was Polish.
She had a normal upbringing, but then Marianne trained as an opera singer following high
school and also as a ballet dancer, and she then became known as Marianne Polska.
She was a popular singer and dancer, and she appeared during the 1920s in many cities including
Linz and Stuttgart working with Austrian composer Nico Dostal.
She would sing operas alongside other tenors, and during this time she got married and also
divorced.
But in 1924, she moved to Berlin and whilst here she met a Jewish journalist named Hans
Goldlust.
The pair then married 5 years later in 1929, but Hans to avoid being persecuted in Germany
tried to escape negative connotations of having a traditional jewish sounding name, so he
became known as Hans Golz.
When Marianne married him, she became known as Marianne Golz Goldlust, and then the couple
would move to Prague in 1934, and Marianne then became a theatre critic, reviewing the
latest shows inside of the city.
She had a normal life, however the Second World War would turn her and her husbands
life upside down.
The Nazis in 1939 invaded Prague, and the occupation here was terrible.
Hitler got what he had wanted for a long time, and he conquered Czechoslovakia which would
become a key part of his war armaments production.
The Wehrmacht marched into Prague on the 15th March 1939, and Hitler then proclaimed the
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
The German citizens inside Prague to begin with saluted and waved Swastika’s but many
Czechs cried and were angered and left horrified.
Germans in the country were automatically citizens of the Third Reich, whilst the Czechs
had their own government, but the Nazis took over the ministries of defence, foreign affairs,
customs and communication.
But it was the Nazis who were in control, and in response to the Nazi takeover, many
Czechs took their own lives rather than life under occupation.
Czechs had to have new ID documents, and show their family trees.
Signs were put up showing which shops were Aryan, and people were trapped and could not
leave without a Visa.
Swastika’s hung from buildings, and SS guards patrolled the streets striking fear.
There were Hitler youth parades most weeks, and many people were executed.
Executions were carried on a daily basis to strike fear into the hearts of the Czech population.
It was a terrifying time for people living in the country, and the Nazi control was ultimately.
They controlled what people listened to, and political dissent could result in execution.
Czechs took an active role against the regime, and there was in the country an illegal Communist
movement.
Many Czechs defied on the anniversary of the Independence Day, and they boycotted newspapers
and refused to ride trams as the stops were announced in German.
Also there were demonstrations in town squares and these turned violent.
At one point the German police opened fire and seriously wounded 9 people and 400 demonstrators
were arrested.
One man a medical student died during this, but further executions occurred, and Reinhard
Heydrich was then brought in to control the Czech population, and he became known as the
Butcher of Prague for his brutality.
But when the Nazis invaded, Marianne’s husband Hans was arrested.
She managed to get him released, and she helped him escape to England, and she also helped
Hans’ Jewish mother and sister to escape to country.
Marianne should have gone with them, but she decided to stay in Prague and spent her time
helping persecuted Jews.
She started to hold gatherings at her home to find others who wanted to help, and she
then met with local resistance leaders to establish networks to smuggle Jews out of
Prague and to safety.
Marianne then recruited new resistance members also from Austria, and they helped Jews to
escape by smuggling them out through the network and moving money across borders.
She even housed refugees in her house, and continued to hold meetings and also arranged
to smuggle information about the evil inside of Prague to the Czech government in exile
who were based in England.
However Marianne Gold-Goldlust must have known that she was living incredibly dangerously,
and if captured she knew that she faced execution for her crimes.
But on the 29th November 1942, she and a number of her resistance members were arrested by
the Gestapo.
Their network had been betrayed, and Marianne immediately confessed to the crimes of treason,
and she told the Gestapo that she was the only member of the group, and because of this
her fellow resistors were actually allowed to leave the prison, and were then freed.
Marianne was then held inside of Pakrac Prison, a brutal and barbaric Nazi site where thousands
were held suspected of being members of the resistance.
Whilst she was held in captivity, she managed to write a number of letters to hr friends
and contacts which were smuggled out of the prison when people brought her food.
However her family tried to go through the courts to have her freed, and to have her
brought to safety.
But many lawyers at the time were fearful of representing her in case they incurred
the evil of the German and Nazi authorities.
Because of this, the best lawyers turned the job down, until Czech Lawyer Marie Schramek
took on the case.
But she could do little to free Marianne.
There was an appeal to the Special German High Court and to the Reich Minister of Justice,
however in May 1943, Marianne Golz-Goldlust was condemned to death for her involvement
in the resistance, and she was sentenced to death.
It would be inside of Pakrac Prisons’ execution chamber that she would lose her life.
During the time in which it was used by the Nazis, 1079 people including 175 women were
executed there using the guillotine.
The Germans utilised the French device for executions as it was considered a reliable
and quick as a method of killing.
Certain executioners perfected the use of the guillotine in which someone would be dead
within around 10 seconds of when they entered the execution chamber.
The chief Nazi executioner of Pankrac prison was Alois Weiss, and there were three rooms
used for executions at the prison.
On the 8th October 1943, Marianne was brought into the execution chamber, and quickly her
identity was confirmed and she was then strapped to a metal board by the executioner’s assistant.
Following this she was then slid under the guillotine blade, and after a few final checks,
the executioner released the blade and with this Marianne Golz-Goldlust was executed.
In the year following the end of the war, all of her letters were compiled and were
published and her story then was told in different media including even a play.
She was considered a woman who was Righteous Among the Nations for her work in rescuing
Jews during the war.
But Marianne Golz was a very brave woman who would risk her life every day to save others.
By even housing refugees inside of her home, she knew that she would and could have been
condemned to death for this.
The Nazis saw this sort of behaviour as completely barbaric and terrible, and as treason and
they punished it in the most brutal way possible.
Marianne was a member of the resistance and she helped to save others and for this was
considered a brilliant humanitarian who ultimately gave her life to help others, even when she
could have escaped and left the country.
Her story is one which certainly deserves to be more well known.
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