Franziska Herold-Ziegler
Franziska Herold was born on 6 October 1905.1AMM, K5/6; WTA Selters i.T., data collection.
She was transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp on 3 August 1939. Gerdina Huisman witnessed her rapid physical decline, as a direct result of the living conditions in Ravensbrück. Gerdina recalled the deep impression this made upon her: ‘[Franziska] was a beautiful woman when she first arrived, but by the time she was liberated she looked like a little old crone.’2WTA Emmen, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-03-2002.
Franziska was put on the list for deportation to St. Lambrecht in May 1943. Her first labour assignment was to help cleaning the cabbages and potatoes in the monastery cellars.3According to statements by Toos Berkers the German sisters in the faith also cooperated with her in the Abbey cellars (PA, interview Berkers, Toos, 16-10-2002).
Later she was set to work as a chambermaid, after Gerdina was moved to outdoor working activities. This had the advantage that both Franziska and Jans Hoogers-Elbertsen got the same food as the guards in the kitchen. She was a chambermaid up until liberation. And just like Jans Hoogers, she smuggled food for the other female Witnesses into the camp in order to improve their rations. At great risk to herself, she used her ‘privileged employment’ to support her sisters in the faith. Liberation for all came in May 1945 through the British army and Franziska began on her homeward journey, first travelling southward with the other German Bible Students. In Klagenfurt the German and Austrian women bade the rest of the group and the Spanish ex-prisoners farewell, travelling on via Weyern to Salzburg. From there she continued homeward to Germany.
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