Sister Ezechiela (Elisabeth) Endrass (1877-1974)

Photo Sister Ezechiela Endrass. Held in: Motherhouse Archive of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent de Paul in Zams, Tyrol.

The fate of Sister Ezechiela (Elisabeth) Endrass (1877–1974) reveals the insidious methods of the Nazi justice system used to punish undesirable individuals. As Mother Superior of the Refuge Convent, she was the spiritual and administrative leader of the "House of the Good Shepherd" in Hall, Tyrol.
Her arrest on July 12, 1941, marked a severe blow to the monastic community. She was not directly accused of open resistance or her faith, but rather of an alleged violation of the War Economy Regulations (Verbrauchsregelungsstrafverordnung) – an arbitrary charge frequently used to persecute political opponents. Sentenced to six months' imprisonment by a Special Court (Sondergericht) in Innsbruck, she spent over five months incarcerated at the Innsbruck Regional Court before her sentence was suspended on probation.
Her imprisonment on a trivial pretext was a deliberate measure to break the convent's leadership and destabilize the community. Sister Ezechiela’s detention stands as a stark example of the lawlessness and arbitrariness to which devout and inconvenient individuals were subjected under National Socialism.