Meta Klara Winkler
Meta Klara Winkler was born on 26 April 1909 in Dittmannsdorf/Saxony.1WTA Selters i.T., Doc. 30/07/38 (1); Doc. 04/06/45.

Meta Winkler grew up in a large family. She had three sisters and two brothers. She was evidently brought up by her parents in the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ faith.
Meta Winkler, who worked as a stocking seamstress, was arrested by the Gestapo on 7 July 1938 in her home region and was deported to the Lichtenburg concentration camp on 2 August 1938. There is no record of Meta’s transfer from this camp to Ravensbrück. Her low registration number, 933,2WTA Selters i.T., Häftlingsausweis (prisoner identification card), Winkler, Meta, Doc. 00/42 (2). shows that she must have been taken there in the early days after the founding of the concentration camp, at the end of 1938 or early in 1939. She was placed in block 12, where predominantly female Bible Students were allocated.
There is no record of the tasks imposed upon her in Ravensbrück, except that they were outside the camp, as Meta Winkler was given a pass which allowed her to leave the concentration camp in order to go to her place of work.
In May 1943 she was put on the transport list for transfer to St. Lambrecht. Nothing is known about the type of forced labour she had to do there.
While Meta was in St. Lambrecht, her brother, Willi, was beheaded at Halle in October 1943 for refusing to do military service. Her second brother Martin had already died. He had also been arrested because of his faith and had been deported to Mauthausen and other places. Martin Winkler did not survive the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He died there on 7 July 1940.3WTA Selters i.T., data collection, Winkler, Meta.

Meta stood firm in her stance for her faith. She survived three concentration camps, where she was deprived of her freedom and separated from her family for seven years.
After her liberation in May 1945, Meta travelled with her sisters in the faith from St. Lambrecht southwards, to make the return journey to her homeland. On 4 June 1945 she applied to the British occupying army in Klagenfurt to be able to travel via Flöha unhindered to Saxony.4WTA Selters i.T., Doc. 28/11/50 (1). There is no record of the date she arrived in her home region at Dittmannsdorf.
In 1949 Meta Winkler submitted an application for the victim status. She also applied for an allowance for those having been persecuted under the Nazi regime. The Ministry of Labour and Development of the Saxony region rejected this on the following grounds:
‘You refused to sign the declaration to boycott the atom bomb. By acting thus, you have detracted from the political significance of the VdN5Vervolgte/r des Naziregimes (person persecuted by the Nazi regime). and promoted the aim of Neo-Fascism. In addition to this, you take no part in the political and social life of the German Democratic Republic, which is required of a VdN.’6WTA Selters i.T., Doc. 11/10/51 (1).
After Meta’s liberation from the Nazi regime, she once again became the victim of a totalitarian state. The communist state refused to acknowledge her victim status because of her faith. Thus, she received no recognition as a victim of the Nazi regime, because based on her religious convictions, she remained politically neutral with respect to the communist state and refused to support it.
Next →