After graduating from the Bundeslehranstalt für Frauengewerbe (Federal Teaching Institute for Women's Crafts) in Vienna and working for some years from home, the 22-year-old Michaela Sirucek applied in September 1938 for a position as "embroiderer" (textile restorer) at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Apart from her skill and the fact that in summer 1938 two married textile restorers whose husbands worked in the public sector had to take early retirement as a late consequence of the Austrofascist Double Earner Regulation, her membership of the NSDAP was in her favour. She had been an illegal member of the Nazi Party before March 1938 and had the low membership number 6,126.899. In August 1939 she married the technician and later criminal police employee Herbert Adelhart. In June 1943, after the birth of her daughter, she left the position at the museum.