Stefanie Kunke

Steffi Kunke (, 26 December 1908 – 14 February 1943) was an Austrian teacher and socialist who was involved in the anti-fascist underground in Vienna during World War II. She died in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Biography Kunke was born on 26 December 1908 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. Her parents Ignaz Jellinek and Marie Jellinek were of Czech background. She married Hans Kunke (1906–1940), who was Jewish. She worked as a teacher and composed music with her husband.

From 1934, Kunke was a member of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist Youth. Kunke and her husband were arrested and she was sentenced to 7 months in prison. and "strongly advised" her to divorce her Jewish husband. She remained married and operating as a leading functionary of the now illegal Revolutionary Socialist Youth organisation.

Josef Buttinger procured false papers for Kunke and her husband to flee from Nazi occupied Austria, but they chose to remain in Vienna until their close friend Ferdinand Tschürtsch received his own papers. She was among the first known female Revolutionary Socialist member to be arrested.

From Lichtenbug, Kunke was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp for women in May 1939. She was whipped under orders from Heinrich Himmler for not denouncing another political prisoner then was held in the Strafblock (a punishment block located next to the gas chambers) where she was forced to undertake hard construction labour. She was sent from Ravensbrück to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1942.

Kunke died in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 14 February 1943. while others that she was beaten to death by Schutzstaffel (SS) Obersturmbannführer Otto Max Koegel.

Legacy Some of the letters written by Kunke to her aunt Flora Jelinek have survived and are held in the Michel Brisebois collection at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

In 1954, the street Kunkegasse in Vienna was named in Kunke and her husband's honour.