Olga Benário Prestes was arrested in a building in the Cachambi neighborhood, in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, along with her husband, communist leader Luiz Carlos Prestes, in March 1936. The police operation mobilized more than 90 agents and was aimed at capturing the couple that was being sought by the Vargas government. Immediately after the arrest, the government made clear its intention to deport the German activist from a Jewish family to Germany, which at that time was already governed by the Nazi Party.
In 1936, the Third Reich had not yet begun the systematic extermination of the Jewish people, but ethnic persecution was already intense. The Nuremberg Laws, enacted in 1935, had stripped various rights from German Jewish families. Adolf Hitler had been preaching hatred against Jews for years, and Vargas was aware of this persecution situation. Olga's pregnancy and her legitimate marriage to Prestes were not enough to change the Brazilian government's decision.
On August 28, 1936, exactly 90 years ago, Getúlio Vargas signed a decree ordering the deportation of Olga Benário Prestes to Nazi Germany. The decision completely ignored the activist's appeals, who tried to use her condition as a pregnant wife of a Brazilian to avoid extradition. Olga's fate in Nazi Germany was imprisonment and, subsequently, death in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
