Selige Schwester M. Berchmana (Karoline Anna) Leidenix FDC

Karoline Anna Leidenix is born in Enzersdorf an der Fischa, the daughter of Michael and Josefa. Her younger sister Mathilde was born in 1868. A third sister is born dead. As the father soon leaves the family, the family has to live in abject poverty. In 1878, when Karoline Anna was just 12 years old, the foundress of the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Love, Franziska Lechner, took the two sisters into boarding school at the Marienanstalt in Vienna to give them an education.

While still at school, the two sisters felt the desire to join the order. In 1882, Karoline Anna Leidenix finally joined the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Love and was given the religious name M. Berchmana. (Her sister joined the congregation a short time later). She made her perpetual profession on August 17, 1892 and was transferred to Sarajevo in 1883.

She learned the Croatian language very quickly and successfully passed entrance examinations for teaching at German-language schools in a total of 14 subjects. She teaches in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Breške and Pale. She also worked in pediatric nursing.

After the closure of the German-language schools in 1923, she worked exclusively in Pale, where she gave private lessons to Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish children.

In the last years of her life, she is known among the Serbian Orthodox inhabitants of Pale as the "Mother of the Serbs" because she does them so much good and never treats Orthodox Christians any differently to Catholics.

During the Second World War, the nuns are caught between the fronts. Tito partisans, Chetniks and the German Wehrmacht fought each other. However, the sisters refused to leave Pale, where they were in charge of a convalescent home.

On December 10, 1941, a group of Chetniks broke into the convent and drove the five remaining sisters and other residents in the biting cold over snow-covered mountain paths some 65 km to Goražde, where they were interned. The drunken Chetniks set themselves the goal of abusing the sisters.

According to local witnesses who heard the soldiers' insults and curses, as well as the sisters' prayers and lamentations, four sisters took refuge through the window on the third floor of the house as a last resort and remained seriously injured until the furious pursuers murdered them with countless stabs from their knives. The bodies are stripped of their clothes and after a few days, during which they are exposed to the eyes of sensational passers-by, they are washed away by the Drina.

Sister M. Berchmana is separated from the others on the long march. She is completely exhausted from the unaccustomed exertion on the long march, although she is led on a sledge for stretches, which often tips over.

As a prisoner, she is accommodated with a family in Sjetlina. After 10 days, Sister M. Berchmana was driven into the forest of Sjetlina and murdered there at the age of 76.

She gave her rosary to her murderers.

On September 24, 2011, Sister M. Berchmana and the other 4 martyrs of the Drina will be beatified by Pope Benedict XVI.