Memorial for Irene Harand

The memorial for the Catholic author and fighter against antisemitism, Irene Harand, was unveiled on November 9, 2010, the 72nd anniversary of the November Pogroms of 1938. It is located on the forecourt of the Paulanerkirche in the 4th district, which was named after her in 2006. The project was carried out by the Honorary Committee Irene Harand under the leadership of historian Wolfgang Bandion. The sculpture by Stephan Hilge thematizes expulsion, flight, and exile, from which Irene Harand herself suffered. She had founded the "World Movement against Racial Hatred and Human Suffering" in 1933 and warned Adolf Hitler in several publications. Her book "His Fight. Answer to Hitler" (1935) was translated into several languages. After the National Socialists seized power in 1938, she fled to the United States and engaged in exilic political organizations and in American public life against National Socialism. She also supported Austrian Jews in their flight to the United States. For her engagement against antisemitism and National Socialism, she was honored by the Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem as a "Righteous Among the Nations" in 1969. Her support for the Austrofascist regime in Austria between 1933 and 1938 is controversial.