Eliza Branco

Elisa Branco Batista (December 29, 1912 – June 8, 2001) was a Brazilian Communist militant and peace activist, awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize in 1953.

Life Barros was born in Barretos, São Paulo, to a Portuguese father who owned a boarding house; she lived with her brothers in a house with 21 rooms. When she was a child, her father died of illness and the family had to rent the rooms of his house to refugees arriving from Europe for survive. and began working in pacifist campaigns after discovering and joining the Brazilian Communist Party after the arrest of Luís Carlos Prestes. That year, she was imprisoned together with the other members of the 1st São Paulo state Textile Workers' Congress.

She joined the Federation of Women of São Paulo of which she became one of the executives and organized protest actions against the sending of Brazilian soldiers to Korea. she joined a gathering of activists carrying a banner saying: "Os soldados, nossos filhos não irão para a Coréia" ("The soldiers, our children will not go to Korea") to protest against Brazil's support for the United States in the Korean War. She is finally released in October 1951.

In 1953, she left for Europe to attend the Congress for Peace in Moscow where she received the Lenin Peace Prize. From 1951 to 1965, she was member of the World Council for Peace.

During the 1964 Brazilian coup d'etat, she was arrested again by the soldiers but only remained in detention for eight days. In 1971, she was arrested again by the military and stayed 3 days in prison.

She died on July 8, 2001, in São Paulo, at 88 years old.