She attended junior school locally. As she would later recall, even at this early stage she was aware of antisemitic sentiments on the streets and in the school corridors. She would also always remember the religious studies teacher challenging the mainstream antisemitism at the predominantly Roman Catholic school, telling the children that "Jews are human too". She moved on to the , near the Augarten park, and also in Vienna's 20th district. As before, most of her school friends and contemporaries were non-Jewish. When she was about fifteen Stella Siegmann and her brother Erwin took part on a schools-arranged camping break during which she made the acquaintance of Jura Soyfer who at the age of nineteen was in the process of embarking on his own career as a precociously gifted and politically committed writer. Her own intense love of the German language was awakened while she was still at school. This, and her love of reading, seem always to have been an important element in her being. As a girl her favourite author was Thomas Mann, to whose multi-layered works she returned, fascinated, again and again. Others whose works she particularly admired included "Klabund" and Brecht. Reading for Stella Siegmann was no mere pastime for idle moments. It was and remained a core dependency and, in dark times, a vital therapy. The years between 1926 and 1930 were probably the happiest of her young life, but she was nevertheless aware of the darkening political clouds, of the fatal Palace of Justice revolt and later, in 1934, of the brutally crushed insurrection on the streets of Vienna in February of that year.