ABSTRACT

Meanwhile at Auschwitz, in the spring of 1944, an event took place that may have had no parallel anywhere in the SS archipelago: an inmate received permission to get married, to a woman brought in from outside. The woman, Margarita Ferrer, from Madrid, had entered batde in the Spanish Civil War at the age of 20, and in the course of the struggle fell in love with an Austrian, Rudolf Friemel, fighting in the International Brigades. In 1939 they entered France together as refugees. In July 1941, with their baby son Édouard, they were arrested on the station platform at Vierzon while they were trying to make their way to Vienna and the home of Friemel's parents. While Friemel was sent to Auschwitz I, where he was employed as a mechanic in the SS garage, Margarita passed through a forced-labour camp in the Black Forest, before finding refuge in the Friemels' home in Vienna. It was there that she received word from Rudolf, who had moved into a leading position in the rudimentary Auschwitz resistance, that he had requested permission from the SS to many her, so that the child could carry his name. From the depth of her distress, Margarita smiled at the hopeless gesture, and then, to the astonishment of all, on 6 March 1944, a year after Rudolf had made his application, she received a telegram summoning her, with Rudolf's father and brother who would serve as witnesses, to report to Auschwitz for her marriage.