An Eight-Year-Old Stands Her Ground

• born April 12, 1930
• Grounds for persecution: One of Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Length of imprisonment: 4 years, 3 months
• Country: Austria

Hermine Liska, who lives in Styria, was taken away from her parents in February 1941 as a 10-year-old, and she was able to return home on May 8, 1945. She was sent to the Waiern home for juveniles in Carinthia and to the Adelgunden institute in Munich to be re-educated.

She also had to perform a year of community service at an inn and small farm in Carinthia. She refused to join the Hitler Youth  and to use the Nazi greeting “Heil Hitler!”
After the war, she married Erich Liska, gave birth to three children and became a housewife. Since 1999, she has visited schools all over Austria as a witness to history and, every year, she tells as many as 13,000 students her story.