The Woman Who Said No to Hitler

Author: Wolfgang Martin Roth

In the spring of 1938, Hitler forcibly annexed Austria to Germany. To give a false legitimacy to this annexation, a plebiscite was organized, the results of which were overwhelmingly in favor of the Nazis, reaching 100% in some areas. However, the consensus was not complete. In an Austrian mountain village, where Nazi fervor was at its peak, a young woman named Maria Heim dared to vote no, becoming the only one to say "no." This courageous stand earned her the nickname "the dissenting voice" in her village, but it cost her severe isolation and deliberate attempts to erase her memory, even to the point of removing her name from her tombstone. In this book, the author takes us on a moving journey, recounting how he discovered her story and how he became obsessed with her memory, striving to keep this moment of individual courage alive, despite long decades of oblivion and neglect.