Schum Schum

Leichter, a Social Democrat politician, labor organizer, and author living in Austria before the outbreak of WWII, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 for socialist activities. She was never released from imprisonment. Her anti-Nazi play is about two Jewish prisoners who escape to a deserted island and are shipwrecked. Leichter wrote the play while interned in Ravensbrück to offer the women there a form of emotional escape. A second version of the play, which praised the SS, was written as way to avoid punishment if found by the guards at Ravensbrück. The original version was destroyed. Leichter was gassed in 1942, two years after arriving at the camp.