Breitenbrunn, then as now, was a small village located by the marshy northern foreshore of the Neusiedlersee/Fertő (Lake) in the ethnically conflicted Burgenland/Gradišće/Felsőőrvidék region.
At the time of her birth it was, within the Austro-Hungarian empire, part of the Kingdom of Hungary (though it would in 1922 pass to the newly reconfigured Austrian Republic following a referendum).
1934 is of particular significance as the year during which the Social Democratic Party was outlawed, as part of a broader political transition to what came to be known as "Austrofascism".
[2][3] [b] Others sentenced to death by the People's Court at the same hearing included Emilie Tolnay and Therese Dworak, whom the authorities had also identified (correctly) as anti-government resistance activists with communist beliefs.
[6] (Emilie's husband, Anton Tolnay received a ten-year jail term (but was released a year later when the régime collapsed[7]).
They were included in a batch of 16 execution victims killed (some sources use the word "murdered") by the Hitler state on that occasion.