Maria Stromberger

Maria Stromberger
Stromberger's Auschwitz ID photo
Born	(1898-03-16)16 March 1898 Metnitz, Austria-Hungary
Died	18 May 1957(1957-05-18) (aged 59) Bregenz, Austria
Occupation(s)	Nurse, textile factory worker

Maria Stromberger (16 March 1898 – 18 May 1957) was an Austrian nurse who is best known for supporting the inmates and their resistance movement at the Auschwitz concentration camp during The Holocaust. After training as a nurse in the late 1930s, she heard of the mistreatment of Jewish people and others in Nazi-occupied Poland. Wishing to help the persecuted, she requested a transfer to Poland. After meeting former inmates of Auschwitz, she took a job as the camp's head nurse for SS officers so she would be in a position to assist the inmates.

For two and a half years, Stromberger smuggled food, medicine, weapons, and information to Auschwitz inmates, and she delivered information about the camp and its inmates to the public. Her kind demeanor toward the inmates raised suspicions of the SS guards, but her supervisor Eduard Wirths took a liking to her and overlooked any suspicious activity. She was eventually sent away from Auschwitz due to an error on her medical history.

Following the allied victory and liberation of the concentration camps, Stromberger was arrested along with other Auschwitz staff. She was freed after inmates testified on her behalf, and she went on to assist in the cases against the Nazis Rudolf Höss and Carl Clauberg. She otherwise lived in relative obscurity in Austria until her death of a heart attack in 1957.