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Helene Kafka was born on May 1, 1894 in Moravia, Austria-Hungary, the sixth daughter in her family. Her father was a shoemaker. The family moved to Vienna, Austria when Helene was only two years old and lived in a Czech migrant community, because they were of Czech nationality. As a young girl, she helped her family financially by working as a housekeeper and then salesperson in a tobacco shop.
In 1913, Helene became a nurse and went to work in the city hospital in Austria. While working there, she met members of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity and entered their community when she was twenty years old. In religious life, she was given the name Maria Restituta, in honor of a fourth-century martyr by that name. Upon taking her vows, she continued working in the city hospital.
However, in 1938, Adolf Hitler of Germany and his Nazi Party annexed Austria. Hitler and his Nazis began a pogrom of hate, designed to imprison and exterminate large populations of people, especially Jews, gay men, Catholic priests, and others.
Sr. Restituta was furious at Hitler and the Nazis. And although she knew it was dangerous to openly criticize Hitler and the Nazis, this did not stop her from doing so. She called Hitler a “madman,” and she openly expressed her contempt for the Nazi regime. Sr. Restituta said about herself, “A Viennese cannot keep her mouth shut.”
Plus, she defied the new laws whenever she could. For example, when a new wing of the hospital was open, Sr. Restituta continued the traditional Catholic practice of hanging a crucifix on the wall of every patient room. The Nazi authorities demanded she remove the crucifixes or she would be fired. She refused. Fortunately, the crucifixes stayed on the walls, and she was not fired. Her order convinced the Nazi authorities that Sr. Restituta was too valuable to the hospital to be replaced.
Amazingly, Sr. Restituta was able to practice nursing and keep criticizing Hitler and the Nazis for some time until Ash Wednesday of 1942. On that day, the Gestapo, the deadly police of the Nazis, arrested Sr. Restituta for hanging the crucifixes and writing a poem mocking Hitler. In late October of that same year, she was sentenced to death by guillotine for “favoring the enemy and conspiracy to commit high treason.” The authorities, however, offered to release her if she would give up her convent. She refused.
On March 30, 1943, the day I was born, the Nazis beheaded Sr. Restituta at the age of forty-eight.
Sr. Restituta was beatified on June 21, 1998 by Pope John Paul II. Blessed Restituta’s feast day is March 30.
