Renate Scherr: Memoirs of a contemporary witness of National Socialism in Austria.

Renate Scherr, an important contemporary witness of National Socialist persecution, died on March 21, 2021. Renate Scherr, born in Klagenfurt in 1927, experienced a childhood full of poverty and violence. During the Nazi era, she was sent to a children’s home in Germany due to her “politically unreliable” background and her frequent changes of work, where she suffered hard labor and abuse. After several unsuccessful escape attempts and her return to Austria, she continued to struggle to survive.

After the war, she met her second husband, Norbert Scherr, with whom she lived through a loving but deprived time. Together they moved to Vienna to start a new life. Despite numerous strokes of fate, Renate Scherr always retained her optimism and unbroken will to live. Until her death, she shared her experiences from the Nazi era with younger generations.

This lecture provides an insight into the eventful life of Renate Scherr. It sheds light on the question of what we can learn for the future from this reappraisal project and the experiences described in it at Elisabethenpflege in Schönebürg, Baden-Württemberg.