Josefa (Josefine) SÖLVA was born in 1908 in Kaltern, South Tyrol [then in Austria-Hungary, but part of Italy since 1919]. She was a Catholic woman who was one of many German speaking South Tyroleans who exercised »the option« to move to Germany [including Austria] after 1939.1
Josefa SÖLVA lived in the mother house of the Merciful Sisters [the Barmherzigen Schwestern] and worked as a housemaid there. She was admitted to the Salzburg Provincial Sanitarium on November 4, 1940. On May 21, 1941 she was sent from there to the extermination center at Schloss Hartheim near Linz in Upper Austria where she was murdered.
The rectory in Kaltern reports that her violent death was never reported to them and remained unknown in her home town.
1 The Option: according to an agreement between Hitler and Mussolini on October 21, 1939 German speaking South Tyroleans had to opt either to take German citizenship and migrate to Germany or to renounce their German identity (language and culture) in order to remain in Italy.
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 06.07.2011 at Salzburg, Salzachgässchen 3
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer