Olga

von Fernando Morais

Olga Benario, German and Jewish, was one of the most remarkable Communist activists of the twentieth century. Blessed with a genius for organization, the beautiful, willful Olga crisscrossed the globe educating and activating legions to combat the worldwide plagues of Nazism and fascism. At the age of nineteen, she masterminded a daring prison raid to free her then-lover, the Communist intellectual Otto Braun. Together they escaped to Moscow, where they quickly rose in the ranks of the international Communist movement. At twenty-six, she was chosen to serve as bodyguard to the legendary Brazilian Communist guerrilla leader Luis Carlos Prestes, who had been brought to Moscow for training and would soon become her lover. Using assumed names, they traveled to Brazil, where Prestes launched a revolution against the Fascist regime. Within months, they were seized by police. After six months of tirelessly continuing her activism from within Brazilian prisons, Olga, seven months pregnant, was classified as extremely dangerous and deported to Nazi Germany. In February of 1942, she died in the gas chambers at Bernburg. This book has been reissued to coincide with a new film adaptation by the producers of "City of God."