Memorial Plaque for Marie Haslauer and Mathias Wimmer

Since May 2024, an additional memorial plaque has been placed at the entrance to the Berndorfer municipal office at the newly designed Franz-Xaver-Gruber-Platz, over the two stumbling stones, commemorating Marie Haslauer and Mathias Wimmer. Haslauer, born in 1899, was a native of Berndorf who regularly organized meetings of the Jehovah's Witnesses with her husband Johann. Both were arrested in 1939 after the Gestapo discovered that these meetings were taking place in the couple's home. After serving their sentence, the family was forced to renounce their faith, although this did not happen. Marie Haslauer and her daughter Antonia were subsequently interned in the concentration camp Ravensbrück, then deported to the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Marie Haslauer was murdered on 27 September 1942. Her daughter survived. Very little is known about Mathias Wimmer to date. Born in 1900 in Berndorf, he was deported to the concentration camp Dachau only a few months after the “Anschluss”. He was interned there until 1 July 1938, after which he was transferred to the KZ Flossenbürg, where he died on 17 November 1941. Since he was classified as a so-called “Vorbeugehäftling”, it is assumed that Wimmer had prior convictions.