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Code Name "Mary": Memoirs of an American Woman in the Austrian Underground
When the Nazi party came to power in Germany, American Muriel Gardiner was a student in Vienna, undergoing analysis and studying the psycho-analysis and medicine that would later become her career. As a member of the foreign community in Austria, she became involved in protesting Fascism and the compromises Chancellor Schuschnigg made. When the Nazis annexed Austria, she grew to be an active part of the underground movement, assisting dissidents and prominent Jews to leave the country.
Her story in "Code Name "Mary" was written many years later, and as she acknowledges, her memory at the time of writing was not clear. With no notes and simply using recollection, she nonetheless presents an exciting story of a young woman, on foreign and often hostile soil, with a dependent child, trying to do the right thing in the face of compelling wrong and unceasing danger.
Her story in "Code Name "Mary" was written many years later, and as she acknowledges, her memory at the time of writing was not clear. With no notes and simply using recollection, she nonetheless presents an exciting story of a young woman, on foreign and often hostile soil, with a dependent child, trying to do the right thing in the face of compelling wrong and unceasing danger.
200 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
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254 people want to read
About the author
Muriel Gardiner
12 books3 followersGardiner was a psychoanalyst, born in America but trained in Vienna, Austria. She married an Austrian man and was part of the resistance against the Nazis in the late 1930s. After war broke out in 1939, she and her husband moved to the United States.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 22, 2014
Well, as a prose stylist Lillian Hellman has her beat all to hell, but Muriel Gardiner's memoir of being in the Austrian underground during the run-up to and early days of World War II is gripping perhaps precisely because it is the plainspoken and matter-of-fact description of daily events told by an ordinary person (of some means) who tried to behave with decency, courage, and integrity during an extraordinary period. I want to read more. If anyone knows where to get hold of her husband Joseph Buttinger's article, "Mary," published in The Bulletin of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis, June 1972, or his book, "In the Twilight of Socialism" (Praeger 1952), please let me know
His life and writings:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/nyr...
His life and writings:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/nyr...
April 21, 2017
So disappointed in this book. The author was a psychoanalyst and her writing was very unemotional. I didn't feel any of the suspense I enjoyed from similar books.
Plus, she was mainly helping socialists escape from Austria, her friends. The only Jews she helped were socialists.
Plus, she was mainly helping socialists escape from Austria, her friends. The only Jews she helped were socialists.
February 7, 2018
When the Nazi party came to power in Germany, American Muriel Gardiner was a student in Vienna, undergoing analysis and studying the psycho-analysis and medicine that would later become her career. As a member of the foreign community in Austria, she became involved in protesting Fascism and the compromises Chancellor Schuschnigg made. When the Nazis annexed Austria, she grew to be an active part of the underground movement, assisting dissidents and prominent Jews to leave the country.
Her story in "Code Name "Mary" was written many years later, and as she acknowledges, her memory at the time of writing was not clear. With no notes and simply using recollection, she nonetheless presents an exciting story of a young woman, on foreign and often hostile soil, with a dependent child, trying to do the right thing in the face of compelling wrong and unceasing danger.
It seems likely that the Lillian Hellman's "Pentimento" story, which prompted the movie "Julia," was about Muriel Gardiner's activities. Hellman claimed her story was true, but about "someone else." However, even Gardiner's editor indicated how unlikely it was that there were two millionaire American women who were medical students in Vienna in the late 1930s. And although the two women never met, they had a mutual friend, Wolf Schwabacher (the lawyer of Hellman and the neighbor of Gardiner). In the face of Hellman's denial and the passage of time, this will remain an open question.
The book would have been stunning with dates and details, but being written some 50 years later it's completely understandable those do not exist. An interesting, authentic look at the life of a wealthy and adventurous student during a tumultuous period in Europe.
Her story in "Code Name "Mary" was written many years later, and as she acknowledges, her memory at the time of writing was not clear. With no notes and simply using recollection, she nonetheless presents an exciting story of a young woman, on foreign and often hostile soil, with a dependent child, trying to do the right thing in the face of compelling wrong and unceasing danger.
It seems likely that the Lillian Hellman's "Pentimento" story, which prompted the movie "Julia," was about Muriel Gardiner's activities. Hellman claimed her story was true, but about "someone else." However, even Gardiner's editor indicated how unlikely it was that there were two millionaire American women who were medical students in Vienna in the late 1930s. And although the two women never met, they had a mutual friend, Wolf Schwabacher (the lawyer of Hellman and the neighbor of Gardiner). In the face of Hellman's denial and the passage of time, this will remain an open question.
The book would have been stunning with dates and details, but being written some 50 years later it's completely understandable those do not exist. An interesting, authentic look at the life of a wealthy and adventurous student during a tumultuous period in Europe.
April 10, 2025
It's noble to help people cross borders and survive nazi occupations before WWII. Being independently wealthy helps. Seems like somewhat of an ego trip with all the traveling.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews