Elisabeth (Camilla) Estermann OFS

Camilla Estermann was born in Linz as the legitimate daughter of Franz and Rosa Estermann. Her parents ran a butcher's shop. After attending elementary school, she trained as a seamstress. On November 11, 1907, she entered the Redemptorist convent of St. Anna in Ried im Innkreis and was given the religious name M. Martina. This was the real name of her sister, who had joined the Carmelite order in Linz. Sr. M. Martina makes her first profession on November 11, 1909, but she finds it difficult to fit into the religious community and a visitation of the convent in 1916 brings to light problems she is having with another sister. She is subsequently referred to as a "troublemaker". Sr. M. Martina therefore leaves the order on October 21, 1916. She worked as a seamstress and briefly joined the Dominican Sisters in 1924, but left them while still in the novitiate and moved in with her older sister in Linz, who was already a widow at the time. However, she took on auxiliary duties at the Carmelite nuns in Linz, where her other sister was a member.

In 1933, Camilla Estermann joined the Patriotic Front. In March 1938, she witnessed the fall of Austria in Linz when the German Wehrmacht invaded Austria. She finds employment in a clothing company, where French prisoners of war are also forced to work on behalf of the NSDAP. She often complains to her confessor about having to watch mothers and their children being beaten and being helplessly at the mercy of the supervisors' whims. Girls and boys as young as ten were sexually abused, dehumanized and thus became "fair game" for sadistic desires. Together with her acquaintance Franz Heger, she distributed copies of prophecies by St. Ottilie and visions of Countess Cilante. In the vision of Countess Cilante from 1923, there is talk "of a land with a bent cross, the sign of Satan ..."

This did not go unnoticed and the Gestapo began to investigate. On November 4, 1943, the senior public prosecutor at the Special Court in Linz sends a criminal file against Camilla Estermann and Franz Heger to the Chief Reich Prosecutor at the People's Court in Berlin on suspicion of a crime under § 5 para. 1. Z 1 KSStVO: "The aforementioned persons are accused of having disseminated alleged prophecies and visions as inflammatory writings in the summer of 1943 in Linz among circles with strong clerical ties, which are directed against the Führer and current events and are highly suitable for replacing the resistance of the German people." However, they were not remanded in custody and there were no immediate consequences in 1943.

In 1944, Camilla Estermann joined the Third Order of St. Francis (Ordo Franciscanus Saecularis) OFS in Linz and was given the religious name Elisabeth. On June 20, 1944, she makes her religious profession there. Sr. Elisabeth offers help to the forced laborers in the clothing company where she works. She provided them with clothing, soap, medicine, cigarettes and food.