In her final letter to her husband, Luis Carlos Prestes, and her daughter Anita two months before her death in 1942, Olga Benario Prestes wrote, “I fought for the just and the good, to make the world better. If I must now say goodbye, I promise I won’t give you any cause to be ashamed of me, not to my last breath.”

Killed in a Nazi euthanasia centre shortly after turning 34, the German communist’s words alluded to her lifelong fight against fascism.

Hers is a story of bravery and resistance that speaks to the various times in which it’s been told, and which has left a legacy in Germany, Brazil and beyond.

For her daughter, Anita Leocadia Prestes, today a retired professor and historian living in Rio de Janeiro, it’s a legacy that needs to be remembered.

The 82-year-old tells Al Jazeera: “It’s important to publicise fighters like [Olga] Benario so people understand it’s necessary to stop the rise of fascism and to prevent similar tragedies. Her example is inspiring to young people who want to fight against fascism, and for social justice and freedom.”

An early lesson in social justice

Born in 1908, Olga was the youngest of two siblings in a middle-class Jewish family from Munich. Her mother Eugenie was part of Bavarian high society, while her father Leo was a member of the German Social Democratic Party and a lawyer. He would often represent poor factory workers for free, and it was through him that Olga first learned about social justice.

Her relationship with her mother, however, was ‘tense’, as, from a young age, Olga questioned – and rejected – the comforts that came with her middle-class upbringing.

In 1923, the same year an Austrian named Adolf Hitler initiated the Beer Hall Putsch – a failed attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic in Munich – 15-year-old Benario joined the underground Communist Youth Organisation (KJVD).

Her activities with the group, including putting up illegal revolutionary posters around town, led local police to register her as a ‘communist agitator’.

It’s important to publicise fighters like [Olga] Benario so people understand it’s necessary to stop the rise of fascism and to prevent similar tragedies. Her example is inspiring to young people who want to fight against fascism, and for social justice and freedom.

Anita Leocadia Prestes, Olga Benario’s daughter

She soon got into a relationship with Otto Braun, a fellow communist seven years her senior. When Olga was 18, the pair left to join the larger communist movement in Berlin and she took on similar activities in her role as a leading KJVD member in the working class neighbourhood of Neukolln.

Her arrest on charges of ‘preparations for high-treason’, followed by her successful attempt to break Braun out of jail in 1928, made Olga a well-known figure across the city.

Katinka Krause, 64, is a bookshop owner who has volunteered at Galeria Olga Benario, a Berlin-based gallery, for more than 30 years.

“There were posters of her all over town and images shown before cinema screenings offering 10,000 marks to find her. Many workers gave her a home and doors were made in different places so she could escape at anytime,” says Krause.

Now a target for the authorities, the pair headed to the Soviet Union, where Olga joined the Communist Youth International, a branch of the Communist International (Comintern).

Her relationship with Braun soon over, she underwent an intense period of military and strategic training, a skillset that included learning English, French and Russian, plus skydiving, horse-riding and piloting.

She also proved herself with successful international missions to Western Europe, getting arrested in Paris and London for her part in protests.

‘A gift’ to Hitler

In 1934, back in Moscow, Olga was tasked with accompanying Brazilian communist leader Luis Carlos Prestes, then in exile in Moscow, back to Brazil.

Olga was to be his bodyguard amid preparations to overthrow Brazilian leader Getulio Vargas, who looked to be sliding towards dictatorship. Disguised as a married Portuguese couple during their lengthy journey there, the pair reached the South American nation in love.

The revolution against Vargas failed in 1935, and Olga was eventually captured. Vargas shipped her back to Germany as ‘a gift’ to Hitler.

Swiss-German historian and author Robert Cohen has written three books on Olga Benario. The most recent, Der Vorgang Benario. Die Gestapo-Akte 1936-1942, (The Benario Process: The Gestapo File 1936-1942) examined the 2,000 Gestapo documents on her that came to light three years ago. According to Cohen, it’s likely to be the largest dossier of documents on any Holocaust victim.

Cohen describes Olga as physically and mentally tough, and says he has sought to represent her from a feminist perspective.

“She took on roles only men were supposed to do, and was as brave and knowledgeable. When Prestes was arrested, the Brazilian police had the order to shoot him. By that point, Benario was two or three months pregnant, but she stepped in front of him and the police didn’t know what to do. She didn’t do this just out of love, she did it because it was her job.”

Resistance in Ravensbruck

Shortly after her return to Germany in 1936, she gave birth to Anita in a Berlin prison. After 14 months, mother and daughter were separated and in 1939, Olga was transferred to the Ravensbruck concentration camp, situated 90km from Berlin in the north of the country.

A concentration camp only for women, it was built to house inmates considered ‘deviants’. Up until its closure in 1945, more than 130,000 women and children, including aristocrats, political prisoners and spies were held there. Olga was among the first batch of women to arrive.

Rochelle Saidel is the founder and executive director of the Remember the Women Institute, an organisation based in New York that supports cultural and research projects that aim to include women in history.

“She was whipped, put in a punishment bunker and worked as a slave labourer in the Siemens factory, which was one of the main slave labour companies at the camp,” says Saidel.

“Plus, she was very broken when they took her baby away from her. For a year-and-a-half she didn’t know what had happened, for all she knew the baby could have been given to a Nazi family. Despite that, she continued helping other people and remained idealistic.”

She never wavered before the enemy, stating that ‘if others became traitors, she would never be’. She paid with her life for such steadfastness…

Anita Leocadia Prestes, Olga Benario’s daughter

Olga was named Blockalteste, or block elder. She made a small secret atlas to teach other prisoners about geography and war, collaborated on a clandestine newspaper and put together a detailed atlas which remains in archives today.

Then in February 1942, she was taken to the Bernburg euthanasia clinic, where she was gassed to death in April.

Her daughter says she maintained a firm stance towards her captors right up until the end.

“She never wavered before the enemy, stating that ‘if others became traitors, she would never be’. She paid with her life for such steadfastness, since if she were to deceive her comrades, she would have had the chance to take up asylum in Russia, Mexico or England.”

The politics of memory

Authors, filmmakers, curators and theatre directors have all sought to tell her story. Saidel says the various ways in which it has been narrated are a clear example of the politics of memory.

“It depends on who, on why and when they are remembering,” she says.

The Jewish part of her identity in particular has triggered much discussion. As a communist herself, Anita regards her mother more as a political prisoner than a Jewish victim of the Nazis.

Cohen says he sees both. “Benario never insisted on her Jewishness, in fact as a communist she was very distant from it,” he says. “When they captured her in 1936, the documents showed they treated her mostly as a communist and a member of the Comintern, from whom they could learn secrets about what the Soviet Union and other communists were up to. But from 1940 onwards, they refer to her almost exclusively as a Jew.”

Benario never insisted on her Jewishness, in fact as a communist she was very distant from it.

Robert Cohen, Swiss-German historian and author

Anita was saved by her paternal grandmother Leocadia Prestes and reunited with her father in 1945. She has since written about her parents extensively. Her latest book, Olga Benario Prestes: Uma comunista nos arquivos da Gestapo (Olga Benario Prestes: A Communist in the Gestapo Archives) was published last year in Portuguese, and alongside Gestapo documents, features letters between her parents.

Anita says that in Brazil, her mother is seen as a “symbol of the struggle of freedom fighters and communists”. The 2004 Brazilian blockbuster film, Olga, was Brazil’s submission for the 77th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Film category, although it was not accepted as a nominee.

Resist. We cannot accept what is going on. Olga Benario did it two ways. She fought fascism while she was free, and then she resisted the Nazis for six more years. That is almost unimaginable.

Robert Cohen, Swiss-German historian and author

In Germany, during the Cold War, she was considered a heroine in the east of the country, with schools, care homes, factories and streets named after her.

Being a communist heroine in the East meant that the West ignored her. Krause, the volunteer at the gallery in former West Berlin, says that’s now changing and more people are learning about her across the country.

For Cohen, Olga Benario’s legacy, particularly today, as far right movements grow in prominence across much of the world, is clear.

“Resist. We cannot accept what is going on. Olga Benario did it two ways. She fought fascism while she was free, and then she resisted the Nazis for six more years. That is almost unimaginable.”

Across Europe, the far right is on the rise and it has some of the continent’s most diverse communities in its crosshairs.

To the far right, these neighbourhoods are ‘no-go zones’ that challenge their notion of what it means to be European.

To those who live in them, they are Europe. Watch them tell their stories in This is Europe.

San Antonio Secortez, Guatemala – Nine-year-old Audel Caal carries a small bouquet of artificial white flowers as he runs down the dirt path leading to his grandfather’s home in the rural Guatemalan village of San Antonio Secortez.

Paying attention to the details, he carefully places the bouquet in a glass and straightens a framed photo of younger sister, Jakelin.

“I’m really sad,” Audel says, fighting back tears. “We played a lot.”

Jakelin died earlier this month while in the custody of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. She was seven years old.

“We don’t want what happened to us to occur to anyone else,” says Jakelin’s 61-year-old indigenous Q’eqchi’ Maya grandfather, Domingo, who has lived in San Antonio Secortez since its founding more than three decades ago.

“Migrants need more attention and protection from the United States,” Domingo tells Al Jazeera. “Everyday there are thousands and thousands of people migrating all over the world.”

Family disputes US story 

Jakelin died in CBP custody on December 8 after being detained along with her father, Nery, a day prior in New Mexico. US government officials initially claimed the seven-year-old died of dehydration, but her father refuted these claims. The official cause of death is pending as the autopsy results are being finalised.

The administration of US President Donald Trump blamed Jakelin’s father and the people smugglers, often referred to as coyotes, who led the pair, along with more than 150 more across the border. 

“This is exactly why we try to encourage migrants to go a port of entry. Unfortunately, they arrived in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere,” Kirstjen Nielsen, the Homeland Security Secretary, said before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. “As soon as [the father] indicated there was a health issue, we did what we could do as quickly as possible to get her to medical care … the men and women of CBP did everything they could do.”

But the family rejects that Jakelin was sick upon arriving to the border.

“The government and Donald Trump are negating the case of my daughter,” Claudia Maquin, Jakelin’s 27-year-old mother, tells Al Jazeera in her native Q’eqchi’ language through a translator. “He is saying she didn’t get sick in custody. It was in their country and they responsible for her death.”

Claudia, standing in her home in San Antonio Secortez, adds that she believes the US is trying to “protect their backs”. 

Claudia wants the Trump administration to allow her 29-year-old husband to stay in the US in order to find work to pay back the debt he accumulated while fleeing to the US. She also hopes he can stay to live out Jakelin’s dream of living in the United States.

“The worst and the most painful thing that could happen to us is that my husband returns without completing his and our daughter’s dream,” Claudia says.

Nery remains in CBP custody, and may be deported as early as Sunday, according to the family.

Discrimination, extreme poverty, climate change

Jakelin and her father fled to the US for same reasons that have pushed hundreds from the area to leave.

Guatemala has long suffered from systemic inequalities and discrimination against indigenous communities. 

The extreme poverty and lack of government attention has pushed many to migrate as a means of survival, especially in San Antonio Secortez. According to Domingo, Jakelin’s grandfather, at least 12 other families there have migrated to the United States.

This is reflective of the rest of the communities across the municipality of Raxruha. According to Pedro Ico, the spokesman for the municipality of Raxruha, at least 200 families have migrated from the region.

“The extreme poverty is causing many to migrate from our municipality,” Pedro tells Al Jazeera, adding that families started leaving in 2017 due to lack of opportunities in the town.

“The prices of the products that we produce here do not have any value,” Pedro says. “Farmers have to work day to night, but there is no return. Because of this many are migrating.”

San Antonio Secortez sits in the lush Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. Here, land is among the most important assets for rural farmers.

For centuries peasant farmers have faced the rampant expansion of agro-industry. This has led to extensive inequalities of land ownership, especially for the indigenous Q’eqchi communities.

The community of San Antonio Secortez was founded in the early 1980’s after years of struggling to gain access to the land, which according to Caal was once owned by General Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, the dictator of Guatemala between 1978-1982.

It was a difficult struggle. The Guatemalan military carried out massacres across the region during dictatorship of Lucas Garcia and the subsequent administration of Efrain Rios Montt.

“It was dangerous, and it was a long struggle,” Domingo says. “There wasn’t any liberty to carry out these type of actions.”

Domingo was 27-years-old when they won the rights to the land. He left this victory for his children.

Yet in the decades since the community has been heavily affected by the lack of opportunity and by climate change. These factors are driving many to make the dangerous journey to the United States.

“There is less rain every day and it is getting warmer,” Domingo says. 

What little is produced is not enough to support the family.

“Here, there is no opportunity to work, we are receiving low pay for what we produce, and everyday things are more expensive,” Claudia says. “My husband decided to go to the United States to find the means to support our family.”

Nery worked almost one acre of land. Through this, the family earns around 700 quetzales, or roughly $90, every six months following the bi-annual corn harvest.

Expanding production was not an option.

“We could not sell more, since we needed the corn ourselves,” Claudia says. “And we could not plant any more since there was not any more land.”

It pains us deeply that we lost our daughter while in search of a better life.

Claudia Maquin, Jakelin’s 27-year-old mother

According to Claudia, her husband had attempted to find work on the nearby palm oil plantations the previous year, but no one was hiring.

It was earlier this year that her husband began to talk about migrating to the United States. His goal was to earn the money to buy more land to support the family.

Unlike other neighbours, Caal did not mortgage his land to get the money to pay the smugglers, locally known as coyotes, to arrange his trip to the United States.

“My husband never had a debt with the coyotes. He has a debt with our neighbours and family members,” Claudia says. 

The stress of having to pay back the money weighs hard on Claudia, she says. For now, though, she must prepare to bury her daughter, whose body is scheduled to return to her community on Sunday. 

“It pains us deeply that we lost our daughter while in search of a better life.”

Latehar, Jharkhand – Imtiaz Khan, a 12-year-old schoolboy, and Majloom Ansari, a 32-year-old cattle trader, were abducted, beaten and hanged from a tree in Latehar in the Indian state of Jharkhand in March 2016. 

The two had been walking with their oxen they planned to sell at a cattle fair, some 40km away, when they were intercepted by members of a Hindu “cow protection committee” in the next village and fatally attacked.

They were beaten with sticks and axes, and hanged from a tree with the same nylon ropes they used for their cattle. 

Now, more than two years later, a Latehar district court found the eight involved in the killings guilty of murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment.

As the accused were brought to court, around 100 supporters shouted slogans such as ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ (Glory be to mother India) and ‘Gau hatya band karo’ (Stop killing cows).

Friday’s ruling is only the second such conviction in a series of lynchings by Hindu cow vigilantes across India in the last few years.

‘Right reckoning’

Pursuing the case legally for nearly three years was expensive as well as emotionally draining for the victims’ families, who are subsistence farmers in one of India’s poorest districts.

“During the trial, the defence lawyers would act very aggressively. He would accuse me of lying when I described how Imtiaz divided time going to school and helping his father, and what took place that day,” Imtiaz’s mother Nazma Khan told Al Jazeera in her house at the end of a dirt track in Arahara village.

“I told the court: Imtiaz was my son, I brought him up. How can their lawyers claim that I don’t know what I was saying?”

In Nawada village, Majloom Ansari’s brother Afzal was still in shock over the killing.

“How did these men think that they had the power to do this? Was it such small a thing for them,” he said.

Majloom’s father Mohammad Ibrahim Ansari said a life sentence was a “right reckoning for the accused”.

India’s Hindu majority regards cows as holy and their slaughter is banned in most Indian states.

Hindu vigilantes often roam the roads in India to protect cows, frequently resulting in assaults against Muslims and low-caste Dalits.

According to data analytics site, India Spend, almost 80 cases of cow-related violence took place between 2012 and 2017, mainly targeting Muslims, who comprise some 14 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people.

Killings hit cattle trade

In Latehar, both the families said they used to support their meagre income from farming by buying and selling cattle at village fairs. Since the killings, the trade completely stopped, they said.

In 2016, just before the killings, Imtiaz’s father, Azad Khan, bought eight oxen that he planned to sell in neighbouring Hazaribagh district.

Because Khan had injured his leg in a motor accident, he asked his 12-year-old son to accompany Majloom in transporting the oxen.

“They had to travel 40km, so they left home at 4 am to go as far as they could before the sun came out,” Khan told Al Jazeera.

“They even had receipts for the purchase of the cattle for Rs 42,000 ($608) from the fair. But these men accused them of smuggling the oxen and selling them for meat and brutally attacked them.”

A police investigation found that two men, who were returning from a wedding at dawn, spotted Imtiaz and Majloom carrying the animals and alerted six others from their village, Jhabahar.

“One of the men, Arun Sau, was active in cow vigilantism in the name of Hinduism, stopping cattle traders in the past as well. He led the attack,” said an investigating officer, who declined to be named.

‘Will go to higher court’

Defence lawyer Arvind Lal, who represented the eight accused, told Al Jazeera that “the police acted irresponsibly during the investigation”.

“The police issued arrest warrants and then further warrants threatening to seize property within two days to put pressure on my clients and forced them to surrender and take blame for the crime,” said Lal.

“They did not even do a test identification parade. The police have shown mobile phone records as evidence but there is no proof that the mobile phones belonged to my clients.”

Lal said he would challenge the verdict in a higher court in Jharkhand state.

In Arahara, Imtiaz’s mother, Nazma, said the families would also pursue the case further if the verdict is challenged and would not give up.

“If they will go to a higher court, we will also go,” she said. “They killed my 12-year-old boy. They must be punished for what they have done.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery to remove two malignant nodules in her left lung, the Supreme Court announced on Friday, adding that there was no evidence of any remaining disease and that no further treatment is planned.

Doctors found the nodules in Ginsburg’s lung when inspecting potential damage from a fall she sustained on Nov. 7. Ginsburg fractured three ribs during the fall, but was back at work only a few days later.

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Critically, doctors said there is no evidence the disease spread beyond her lungs — a development that could have precipitously cut the odds of survival.

Ginsburg said last Saturday during an appearance in New York that her health was fine and her ribs were almost fully recovered, and the Friday announcement from the court was her first public acknowledgment of the disease.

The vast majority of lung cancer patients survive the disease if it’s caught early, as it appears is the case with Ginsburg. According to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate for stage one lung cancer is roughly 92 percent.

The Supreme Court’s statement also noted that doctors found the cancer incidentally while conducting other tests — a sign that the disease was detected earlier than normal. Lung cancer symptoms typically don’t show up on their own until the disease is at a far more advanced stage.

This is not Ginsburg’s first encounter with cancer. She was treated for colorectal cancer in 1999 and pancreatic cancer in 2009, NPR reported. At 85 years old, Ginsburg’s has never missed a day of oral arguments during her time on the court.

The court said on Friday that Ginsburg is resting comfortably and is expected to remain in the hospital for a few days.