Ministerialrätin Dr. Eleonora Anna Maria Gabriele (Nora) von Hiltl

Eleonora Anna Maria Gabriele von Hiltl, known as 'Nora', was born in Vienna as the legitimate daughter of cavalry colonel Ernst Ritter von Hiltl and his wife Elisabeth, née von Neumann-Spallart. Her younger twin sister Herta married Maximilan Pammer in 1935, who was deported by the National Socialists to the Dachau concentration camp. Eleonora and Herta's great-great-grandfather was the butcher and banker Josef Ettenreich, who saved the life of Emperor Franz Joseph I during the attempted assassination of Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1853.

Due to her father's profession, the family initially had to move frequently. After the end of the First World War, the family settled in Innsbruck in Tyrol, where Eleonora von Hiltl took her school-leaving examination after secondary school.

After attending the one-year Ursuline Household School in Innsbruck, Eleonora von Hiltl began studying music at the Vienna Academy of Music to become a teacher. After passing the state examination for piano with distinction in 1928, she obtained the state examination for teaching music at secondary schools and teacher training colleges in 1933.

In 1933, she initially returned to the Ursuline household school in Innsbruck, where she taught until 1935. In September 1935, she finally settled in Vienna, where she began teaching music education at various schools. A staunchly patriotic Austrian, she resolutely rejected National Socialism.

On March 12, 1938, Eleonora von Hiltl witnessed the demise of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. From September 1939, she worked exclusively at the Wenzgasse grammar school in Hietzing and at what is now the Mollardgasse vocational school in Mariahilf.