Schwester M. Ewalda (Anna) Schenk FDC

Anna Schenk was born in Hermersdorf near Moravian Schönberg in Moravia. She attended the first stages of school there before attending the teacher training college in Troppau. In 1904, she joined the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Love, received the religious name M. Ewalda and made her perpetual profession a year later, on August 16, 1905. From 1928 until its closure by the National Socialists, she was a teacher at the domestic science school in the Marienanstalt. There she also witnessed the downfall of Austria in March 1938, due to the occupation by National Socialist Germany.

As an opponent of National Socialism, she listens with her fellow sisters M. Genesia Rychetzky, Sr. M. Gualberta Krenn, Sr. M. Aniceta Schiefelbein, Sr. M. Immaculata Schleimer and Sr. M. Meinrada Wleklo together with residents of the Jacquingasse women's hostel attached to the Marienanstalt and the Redemptorist priest Anton Pauk, the banned station "Radio Vatican". During the interrogation of Sr. M. Immaculata Schleimer by the Gestapo for passing on a mocking poem about Adolf Hitler, she mentions listening to the banned station together.

On November 22, 1939, Sr. M. Ewalda Schenk is arrested by the Gestapo for listening to an "enemy station". She was imprisoned by the Gestapo and in the regional court and was released on May 31, 1940.