(19 14-1945)
German anti-Nazi resistance. Hilda Meisel was born in Berlin on July 31, 1914. As a young girl she joined the youth section of the left-wing opponents of the German Communist party. Though she did not finish school, at the age of fifteen she was writing for Der Funke (The Spark), the journal of the International Socialist Combat League. In addition to her radical opposition to the Nazi regime, she was a Jew. She apparently was able to emigrate to England through a nominal marriage to a British passport holder. In Britain she continued her radical-left opposition efforts under the nom de guerre Monte. In Britain she wrote a short piece, "Where Freedom Perished," in which she stressed that Germans were also suffering from Nazi oppression. The theme was continued in a book, The Unity of Europe.
She was determined to return to Germany to work against the regime. As she attempted to cross the German-Swiss border on April 18, 1945, she was shot by a German patrol. Her passion for justice lives on in her poems.
