Born: Vienna 26th Sept. 1918, Lives in Vienna (Austria)

Is an austrian journalist and survivor of the holocaust

She was born into a secular socialist family with jewish origins. Her father Gustav Römer was an engineer and served as officer in the army of the austrian monarchy during world war 1. Both of her parrents where active members of the austrian socialist party and ilse and her brother where educated by the ideals of humanism such as equality and freedom. In 1938 when the Nazis took power in austria she was forced to leave the university where she had studied german literature and psychology ( Charlotte Bühler was one of her professors ). In 1939 she emigrated to britain where she had work as a maid, and later after nursing school in a kindergarden. Her family, except her brother who escaped too, was totally extinguished by the Nazis. In 1946 she went back to austria with her husband Peter Aschner (1918-1984)as a convinced communist and worked there for several years as a journalist for the partys own paper. After the end of the Prague Spring in 1968 she lost all her hopes for a socialism with an human face and left with many other intellectuals the austrian communist party. From 1969 to 1978 she worked for the famous austrian monthly-magazine FORVUM which was founded by Friedrich Torberg and was at that time run by Günther Nenning. After that she was chief secretary of the Grazer Autoren Versammlung ( austrias largest writers union )working with Ernst Jandl and Josef Haslinger. In 1989 she retired and since then played and acted as a regisseur in the first viennese reading theatre. Since 2006 she had only a few readings. She is one of the most interviewed whitnesses of the shoah in austria.

see allso:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7283899.stm http://www.erinnern.at/das-vermaechtnis/videos-zeitzeuginnen/video-ilse-aschner http://www.erinnern.at/das-vermaechtnis/die-zeitzeuginnen http://www.lettertothestars.at/uploads/pdf/024028_Aschner.pdf http://www.gav.at/member.html?menu=3&sel=1&mid=9&mainmenu=1