PAID HOLIDAYS FOR EVERYONE IN THE 1st AUSTRIAN REPUBLIC (1918-1934) & HOW THE VIENNESE WORKING CLASS PROFITED FROM THIS NEW SOCIAL LEGISLATION

LIVES OF THE NON-ÉLITE IN VIENNA FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE TO THE NAZI REGIME AND POST-WAR AUSTRIA, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My great-uncle Karl Elzholz – on the right with my great-aunt Mitzi, his second wife and my grandmother Lola’s youngest sister

My grandfather Toni Kainz with my grandmother Lola (in the right photo Lola on the very right margin in company with friends; Toni on the left)

Both Karl Elzholz and Toni Kainz were enthusiastic amateur photographers and among their legacies are photographic documents of working-class holidays during the 1st Austrian Republic. Especially precious are two beautiful photo albums of 1919 and 1933, which illustrate this research. Most holidays of Viennese workers and members of the lower middle class were spent in the Alps at lakes and along rivers in Austria.

Karl on the left; Lola and Toni on the right

Mitzi on the left; Lola and Toni on the right

The two sisters, Mitzi and Lola on the left; Lola in front of a mountain cottage on the right

In the Austrian mountains: Lola on the left; Toni and Lola on the right

Left: The cover of the photo album of 1919 in the Austrian Alps; right: Karl’s photo album of his trip to the Mediterranean in 1933

 

Statutory holiday entitlement and working hours in Austria

In the 19th and early 20th century holidays were a privilege of the wealthy. It was a long way from the “summer retreat of the rich” at the beginning of the 20th century to mass tourism at the end of the 20th century. Originally a paid obligatory annual holiday for all employees did not exist. This was the achievement of the 1st Austrian Republic in 1919. All political parties represented in the 1st democratic Austrian parliament, which had been elected on the basis of an equal voting right system for the first time, passed the law unanimously granting a paid annual holiday between five days and five weeks to all employees. Yet, this did not mean that all employees could afford a holiday away from home. This was reserved for a small group who earned enough to pay for travel and accommodation for a few days, mostly in the vicinity of Vienna or the Austrian Alps. Around 1900 some Austrian villages established tourist associations and village beautification societies to make holidays attractive and affordable for workers on wages that allowed a brief holiday only. For those who could not pay for hotel rooms or rent villas, rooms in private houses or farms were offered as private accommodation for the less well-to-do and in mountainous regions a host of mountain cottages were built to cater for the mountaineering enthusiasts. Most holiday makers from the working class preferred hiking in the Austrian Alps, fleeing factories and crowded, polluted cities. A bed in the dormitories of mountain huts was a cheap alternative to a bed-and breakfast, for example.

After the end of the Second World War, the “Miracle Years” of 30 years of sustainable economic growth in Europe made holidays more affordable for everyone. In the 1950s the Viennese started go on camping holidays on Adriatic beaches in the north of Italy, but the majority spent their holidays in Austria, visiting historical sites and enjoying the beautiful natural landscapes of the “Wachau” along the Danube, the Carinthian lakes or the “Salzkammergut”.

So, how did this development of granting days of recreation to the working class come about in Austria? Already in ancient Greece and Rome the slaves were offered some days off work for the purpose of recreation, but this concept was not perpetuated in the following centuries. Only the nobility and the rich enjoyed summer retreats or spas or went on “grand tours” to see the historical sites of Europe in the 18th and 19th century. It was argued by the ruling classes that only those who “worked with their brains “become exhausted and “their nerves are rattled”, so they were in need of rest and recreation. The manual workers, those who worked in factories for example, did not need any vacation because their occupation was “healthy”. The entrepreneurs invested in machines, which had to run the year round to be profitable; that’s why the workers had to be at the mines and factories up to 16 hours a day, six days a week and 52 weeks a year. Sundays and Christian holidays were “hunger days” because they were unpaid. Days off work were only granted on special occasions and they were not paid.

Around 1900 the newly founded trade unions resorted to collective bargaining in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy to demand paid holidays for their exhausted workers. The first occupational groups which were well organised were the book printers and the metal workers. Consequently, they reached agreements with the employers via collective bargaining to be granted some paid days off work. In 1911 such holiday concessions were made by the entrepreneurs in sectors such as the chemical industry, the textile and food industry and the gold and silver production. In contrast to blue-collar workers, white-collar workers had been granted statutory holiday entitlements in 1910. Skilled employees were in high demand in the Austrian economy and were therefore lured to take on jobs in these booming sectors by being offered fringe benefits, such as paid holidays, which varied between 10 days and two weeks depending on the duration of their employment.

With the end of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the foundation of the 1st Austrian Republic in 1918 the law granting statutory vacation entitlement for all employees, blue- and white-collar workers alike, was passed in the Austrian Parliament on 30 July 1919. After employment of one year, the workers were entitled to one week of paid holidays a year and after five years of employment, two weeks of paid holidays. Young workers below the age of 16 were granted a paid holiday of two weeks from the start of their employment. Unfortunately, these legal regulations were often evaded by the employers after the introduction of the new law. Many workers were urged to forego their right to paid holidays or they were dismissed before reaching the end of their first year of employment. But in 1924 the Austrian Labour Inspectorate reported that most enterprises respected the statutory holiday entitlement, with the exception of some small businesses, which deprived their workers of paid holidays or withheld young workers from taking the holidays they were entitled to. Austrian white-collar workers managed to increase their holiday demands in 1921 to up to five weeks per year, for example journalists, civil servants, actors and employees of rural estates.

In the 1930s the Great Depression hit the Austrian economy hard and the entrepreneurs tried to repeal the law granting statutory paid holiday entitlement, but the workers resisted and went on strike. The first to go on strike were the workers in the meat industry in Graz in 1931. When in 1934 the Austro-Fascists took over control of the state, not only parties, for instance the Social Democratic Party, were forbidden, but also free trade unions and much of the social legislation, which was an achievement of the 1st Republic, was abolished, or the enterprises just ignored existing labour laws without sanctions by the Austro-Fascist government. The situation of the workers worsened during the Nazi dictatorship, which started with the “Anschluss” (takeover of Austria by the Nazis) in March 1938 and ended in the spring of 1945 with the end of World War II. During the National-Socialist (NS) dictatorship there was no longer any additional pay for overtime, Sunday or holiday work and no holiday pay. Only adolescents were offered more holidays, if they spent them in the NS youth camps, where they were indoctrinated with Nazi ideology. With the establishment of the 2nd Austrian Republic in April 1945 the statutory rights of workers of the 1st Austrian Republic were reinstated and in 1946 two new laws were introduced: first, granting blue-collar workers 12 days paid holidays per year, which could be increased to 24 days after 15 years of employment and second, young workers were entitled to 18 days paid holidays up to the age of 18, which was increased to 24 days in 1947.

In the 19th century there were no laws regulating daily or weekly working hours in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The liberal principle of absolute freedom of labour contract prevailed. The free contract of employment between employer and employee with no legal limits of working hours was sacrosanct, but in reality, no negotiations on equal terms between employer and employee existed. As a result, the daily working hours in industry, mining and artisan businesses were between 12 and 16 hours and the weekly working hours amounted up to 90 hours, while child labour was prevalent. The state only started to interfere, when the health of young people deteriorated drastically, so that the draft rates of healthy young men for the military dropped dramatically. In 1884 the first statutory regulations were passed in the mining industry by limiting the duration of a shift to 12 hours including breaks. This was followed by the factory workers in 1885 with 11 hours of maximum daily working time. Child labour was forbidden for children below the age of 12 in craft businesses and below the age of 14 in factories. Yet the majority of workers in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were employed in small family businesses and agriculture, which were exempt from these statutory regulations. Anyway, many of the enterprises did not adhere to these new labour regulations. In 1890 the newly founded Social Democratic Party demanded the “8-hour-day”:  8 hours for work – 8 hours for rest – 8 hours for leisure time (“for what we will”). But these demands could only be realised after the end of the monarchy and the establishment of the 1st Austrian Republic in 1918. The Social Democratic state secretary for social affairs Ferdinand Hanusch passed around 80 social laws between 1918 and 1919, among them the statutory holiday entitlement and the eight-hour working day, which unfortunately did not apply to workers in agriculture and forestry, who constituted a large part of the Austrian workforce, because the conservative Christian Socialist Party resisted.

Despite these new social legislations, vacations were a rare luxury for Viennese lower middle-class and working-class families. But the low rents in the newly erected social housing complexes of “Red Vienna” – the social reform period in Vienna from 1919 until 1934 – allowed some families who were lucky to be allocated such a flat, to save up for a short holiday. Furthermore, the cheap accommodation possibilities in mountain cottages and rooms in private houses and on farms in the countryside created early forms of low-cost summer tourism in the Austrian Alps and on Austrian lakes. Yet most families spent their free time in or around Vienna, in the “Prater” with its untouched nature and the fun park area, or the” Laaerberg” with the amusement park “Böhmischer Prater” or the “Heurigen” in the Vienna Woods, where the new wine was offered at affordable prices in the vineyards at the outskirts of the city. Holiday travels and mountaineering expeditions formed part of the leisure-time programme of “Red Vienna”, which wanted to offer education and experiences in nature and the enhancement of the health of the workers, while at the same time eradicating the traditional working-class vices, such as excessive drinking, smoking, gambling and unhealthy ways of life. The Nature Association “Naturfreunde” was founded as a counterpart to conservative mountaineering associations such as “Alpenverein” and “Touristenclub”.

See article: http://centraleuropeaneconomicandsocialhistory.com/the-alps-past-time-of-the-young-viennese-in-the-1920s-1930

Furthermore, the Austrian railways offered an affordable and comfortable access to the Alpine regions for Viennese workers and their families.

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INNOVATIVE VIENNESE HOUSING CONCEPTS FOR THE WEALTHY AND THE WORKING CLASS (1872-1933) AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF VIENNESE JEWS AS ARCHITECTS, ENTREPRENEURS AND TENANTS

LIVES OF THE NON-ÉLITE IN VIENNA FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE TO THE NAZI REGIME AND POST-WAR AUSTRIA, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Cottage Quarter “ Vienna, Währing

On 14 March 1872 the “Wiener Cottage Verein” (Viennese Cottage Association) was founded, initiated by the famous “Ringstrassen” architect Heinrich von Ferstl, whose aim was to counter the pressing need for housing in the overcrowded city of Vienna and to plan a “garden city” following the English model. In the houses and villas which were erected there several writers, artists, actors, scientists, entrepreneurs, many of them of Jewish descent, lived in this “garden city” at least for some time. The first tenants had to walk there from the city, but from 1889 a horse-drawn tramway ran to the “Cottage Quarter” and from 1907 the tram number 40 left the city at the stop “Stock Exchange” and ran to Sternwartestrasse and Gymnasiumstrasse and along “Währinger Park”, which had been the cemetery of the suburb Währing until 1923, where the writers Franz Grillparzer and Johann Nestroy were buried. From there the tram 40 reached the “Türkenschanzpark”. The name is derived from the place where the Turkish army, which besieged Vienna in 1683, had entrenched itself. In 1872 Edmund Kral and Heinrich von Ferstl founded the “Cottage Association”, which bought the gravel and sand pits below the former trenches and initiated a housing project which was supposed to realise their idea of modern and healthy living in one- and two-family houses. Ferstl’s dream of a different form of housing was modelled on the concept of “idyllic English garden cities”. Between 1873 and 1930 houses and villas were built imitating historical styles, others were modern houses designed by innovative architects like Josef Hoffmann. All of them were free standing town houses with a front and a back garden in an idyllic green oasis for the well-to-do.

A “Cottage Quarter” similar to the one in the suburbs of Währing and Döbling was established in the suburb Hietzing between the imperial castle Schönbrunn and the imperial hunting ground, the Lainzer Tiergarten, the “Hietzinger Cottage”. There a start was made in 1883, when the entertainment park of Carl Schwender called “Neue Welt” (“New World”), went bankrupt. This ground was divided up into plots of land for the construction of another “garden city”, which was called “Neue Welt”, too. Many of the proprietors and tenants of the “Viennese Cottage Quarters” were forced into exile after the takeover of the Nazis, the “Anschluß”, in March 1938 and several did not only lose their fortunes, but also their lives in the Nazi terror.

Nearly 50 years after the foundation of the first “Cottage Association” the dream of modern and healthy living in Vienna was to be realised for the working class as well. When in 1919 the Social Democratic Party took over the running of the city of Vienna, the party devised an ambitious plan of creating at the start terraced houses in settlements and then blocks of flats with modern amenities to alleviate the drastic housing shortage. Between 1923 and 1933 63,934 affordable, light and healthy flats were built for workers and their families in a world-wide unique social housing project of the time. In the housing concept of “Red Vienna” several modern architects, like Josef Frank, intellectuals, health experts, pedagogues, like Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer, and sociologists like Otto Glöckel, Siegfried Bernfeld or Max Adler were involved; many of them with Jewish backgrounds. Unfortunately all the Jewish tenants could enjoy the benefits of the new flats only briefly because they were the first to be evicted from the social housing projects after the “Anschluß” (the takeover of the Nazis) in March 1938, among them my great-uncle Karl Elzholz and his wife Mitzi, who were chased out of their flat in the “Reumannhof” at Margaretengürtel 102/15/17. They both managed to flee to Bolivia. After the war Karl returned to Vienna and moved into a newly built social housing complex nearby.


My great-aunt Mitzi in front of the “Reumannhof”, a social housing project of Red Vienna, where she lived with my great-uncle Karl Elzholz until their eviction in 1938 – both together in their flat

The only member of my large family who was well-off enough to move intone of the high-end housing projects of the “Hietzinger Cottage” was Henny Singer, who was a niece of my other great-uncle Norbert Katz. She had survived the holocaust in Israel and returned to Vienna after the war with her wealthy husband Josef Singer, who was a textile trader in the “Viennese Textile Quarter”. They moved into a villa in Hietzing in Alban-Berg-Weg 2/24.


Henny Singer, my aunt, after the war -and together with her young cousins, Susie and Josie Katz

“Cottage Quarter” in Währing & Döbling (most interesting villas in the roads marked in yellow)

The first “Cottage Quarter” was planned in the suburbs of Währing and Döbling in the west of Vienna between Gymnasiumstrasse, Haizingergasse, Sternwartestrasse and Cottagegasse. On 9 April 1873 the “Viennese Cottage Association” was turned into a cooperative with unlimited liability. The members signed a commitment that forbid the building of houses which would in any way block the view of the other members, or restrict their access to light and fresh air. Additionally no trade was to be run on these premises which would disturb the other proprietors by polluting the air or producing noise or causing the danger of fires. Further regulations stipulated that every house was to have two floors only and a minimum distance to the next house was to be kept. All houses of one block had to form a square block with the gardens in the middle so that a garden complex was to be formed at the centre of a block. The building contractor was free to choose the architectural style, but the house had to fit into the character of the “Cottage Quarter” and by that help form a harmonious unity. This voluntary commitment of the members of the association was known as the “Cottage Servitut” and this was cited in the land register. It is still valid today and has helped to create a leafy suburban residential neighbourhood with interesting villas in historical and art nouveau styles. The architect and founder Ferstl was the first chairman of the “Cottage Association”, Archduke Karl Ludwig took over the “Protectorate” and the architect Carl von Borowski was in charge of the site management. He also developed the basic architectural concept of the first villas. The terrain was an open space at 388m altitude with rich water reserves and a fertile ground for gardening. The price at the time of the foundation of the association was affordable at 14.50-18.50 crowns per square fathom. The first 50 lots found many buyers and the architectural concept for the houses was modelled on English one- family houses, which meant, just one floor, which was cheaper and a floor plan then common in England: namely a basement with kitchen and store rooms; a ground floor with dining room, smoking room and lounge and finally on the first floor living room and bed rooms. Many of the clients opposed this architectural concept because they were used to the Viennese housing design of having all the rooms on one floor. The association had to convince the clients of the benefits of the new floor plans because otherwise they would violate their ideal of a garden city. To make the houses affordable a flat to rent was included in the attic, so that in the end four floors were erected on a rather small building plot and enough space for the garden was saved. Every house had to have a small front garden and the larger back garden of a block had to be directed towards the other back gardens to form a large green space in the middle, which was considered essential because it created a bigger “air reservoir”. This type of urban housing was until that point of time completely unknown in Vienna and the leading architect was Carl von Bokowski together with Anton Zöchmann and Julius Deininger.

After the first building phase approximately ten new houses were built per year according to the guidelines of the association under the leadership of the architect Karl Haas, a student of Ferstl. At that time a plot of 220 square fathoms cost 3,200 crowns and the cheapest house with four rooms plus ancillary rooms cost 10,000-12,000 crowns including the price of the building plot. The first houses were simple and cost-efficient with two to maximum four rooms, the staircases were steep and narrow, toilet and bathroom positioned in inconvenient corners of the house. When all the ground the association had bought in 1973 was used up, more land was acquired in the adjoining suburb of Döbling by the association in 1884. In this second building phase new types of family houses were planned and constructed with a greater variety of floor plans and richer decorations imitating Renaissance and Baroque styles. The rising property prices attracted a richer clientele, which had an effect on the architectural planning. The rooms were now larger, the staircases grander, the antechambers more representative and the furnishings much more luxurious. By 1906 a model house had been designed by Gustav Tschermak which tried to incorporate all the experiences of the “Cottage Association” of the last thirty years. It has to be noted that by this time the largest part of the first 260 family houses had been planned and built by the site management of the “Cottage Association” according to designs of different architects. Furthermore the association planted 1,900 trees in all streets of the “Cottage Quarter” and the adjoining “Türkenschanzpark” was opened to the public in 1888. In 1905 the quarter comprised 640,000 square metres with 387 family houses in 16 alleys.  The area boasted primary and higher schools, an ice rink, tennis courts, a casino association, a police station and a post office, but no shops or restaurants and cafés.

This innovative urban planning model was so successful that it was copied elsewhere and in 1910 the City of Vienna took up this concept and incorporated it in its building regulations and area zoning plan. Today the voluntary commitment of the “Viennese Cottage Association” represents public law and the aim of the association is to conserve the special character of this neighbourhood.

One of the targets of the founders was to convince the Viennese bourgeoisie of the advantages of a family town house with garden and to compensate the lack of green space in the inner city areas. In a way it was the counter-concept to the expensive inner city blocks of flats. The architect Heinrich von Ferstel and the art historian Rudolf Eitelberger opposed the building speculation in those huge blocks of flats and wanted to improve the quality of housing in Vienna by constructing smaller units. Their ideal was the “English philosophy of housing”. The first fifty family houses were planned in detached and semi-detached form by Carl Ritter von Bokowski and the plots were rather small. Later on some rich owners wanted to show off their wealth, so their houses were built in more opulent styles and the plots were larger. Originally the villas were built in the “English style”, but when Hermann Müller took over the site management of the “Cottage Association”, French- and Italian-style villas were erected as well. In 1961 the “Cottage Quarter” in Währing and Döbling comprised 84.27 ha net building land and 6,644 inhabitants. In the wake of the “Viennese Cottage Association” in other suburbs of Vienna similar “Cottage Quarters” for the well-to-do were established, for example in Hietzing, in Gersthof, Hütteldorf, the Prater and Lainz.


“Cottage Quarter” in Hietzing (most interesting villas in the roads marked in yellow)
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THE LIVES OF PEOPLE IN „MIXED MARRIAGES“ AND OF „MIXED-RACE CHILDREN“ (ACCORDING TO THE NAZI NUREMBERG RACE LAWS) IN VIENNA 1938-1945

LIVES OF THE NON-ÉLITE IN VIENNA FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE TO THE NAZI REGIME AND POST-WAR AUSTRIA, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

After the “Anschluß”, the takeover of the Nazis in Austria on 12 March 1938, the racial background of every citizen was documented according to the Nazi Nuremberg race laws and my mother, Herta, was classified as a “Mischling 1.Grades” (a “mixed race child of the 1st degree”) – as can be seen in the documents above. Her mother, my grandmother Lola (Flora Kainz), was a Catholic of Jewish descent with Jewish parents, my great-grand parents Ignaz and Rudolfine Sobotka, which meant that all of them had to bear the full brunt of racial discrimination of the Nazi dictatorship. But as long as my grandfather, Anton Kainz, the father of Herta, stood by his family and did not divorce my grandmother Lola, at least Lola and Herta were somehow “protected” because he was a certified “Aryan”. But this “protection” was constantly on the brink of being withdrawn, despite the fact that Toni loved his wife dearly and adored his daughter and would never have thought of giving in to Nazi pressure. This constant insecurity and permanent racial discrimination left deep scars especially in the psyche of Herta, who was four and a half years old at the time of the “Anschluß”. She first lost her aunts and uncles who had to flee Austria, then her grandparents, who were deported to the KZ Theresienstadt and then was in constant fear that her mother would be arrested and deported, too. At the end of the war she was eleven and a half and was not only terribly afraid of the Allied bomb attacks on Vienna, but even more of the knocking on the door and a surprise visit of the GESTAPO which would take away her mother. It was impressed on her by her father that she had to run to the fish shop where he was the branch manager and inform him immediately if anything happened to Lola. Herta remembered that her parents had lots of friends and kept in contact with them during the Nazi occupation. One of them was a high-ranking NSDAP party member and he proposed that Lola should hide in his flat in case of emergency, because no one would suspect him of secretly protecting a Jewess, so she would be safe at his place. But fortunately this was not necessary. Till the end of her life this fear accompanied Herta. Despite the tragic political circumstances and the discrimination she faced as a child, she stressed what a happy childhood she had had because her parents doted on her and this love carried her through those hard times – and the close friendship to a girl who lived in the same house in Mariahilferstrasse 41 and was an outcast just like her. Her name was Herta, too, and she was a very unruly foster child. This unlikely couple, the extremely timid and withdrawn Herta, my mother, and her daring wild playmate remained friends until old age despite the fact that their lives took very diverging paths: My mother became a master dressmaker and “the other” Herta a bar singer. Maybe the discrimination they faced as children created a lasting bond.

The fate of Jewish partners in “mixed marriages” and of “Mischlingskinder” (“mixed race children”) in Vienna was a doubly tragic one because after the war their sufferings were not recognised, neither by the 2nd  Austrian Republic nor by the Jewish or Catholic community with the argument “nothing had happened to them – they had survived”. Yet the fast succumbing to a very severe form of dementia at a rather early age can be contributed to the trauma Herta had experienced during the Nazi occupation and that had never been diagnosed or treated. It seems that children carried these traumas with them all their lives and despite apparently functioning very well as adults, the harm that was done to their souls came up again much later in life once more.


Herta with her mother, Lola, and at the age of three, a very shy little girl

All Jewish women were forced by the Nazis to take on the name “Sara”, as can be seen in this document of the 30 June 1939 of my grandmother Flora Kainz, called Lola. Jewish men had to include “Israel” in their names.

“Ariernachweis” (“Aryan Certificate) of Anton Kainz, Herta’s father. This document proved the “Aryan” status of Toni, which provided some fragile protection for Lola and Herta. The handwritten addition stated that Toni was married to a Jewess.

The Nazi IDs of Toni (left – the Nazi eagle was covered, probably because the ID was still in use after the liberation by the Allied Armies) and of Lola (right – marked with a “J” for Jewish)

If this photo of Lola of 1939 is compared to the photos of her before 1938 in the articles on classical music, suburban inns and suburban cafés on this research website, one can see that the happy-go-lucky beautiful young woman of those days had turned into a terrified, emaciated and desperate one within a year.

When Toni was drafted by the “Wehrmacht” for the campaign against France, he wrote this Christmas card to Lola from the front on the 24th December 1940 declaring his never ending love for her despite Nazi pressure to divorce her. He quoted the famous lines of the operetta aria “Das Land des Lächelns” by Franz Lehár: “Yours is my whole heart” on the front of the card.

The text Toni wrote, which was censured by the Army High Command, says: “Dearest Muckerle! All the best for the New Year. I only wish for one thing which is being together again very soon. Kisses, yours Toni”

Toni,2nd on the right in front of the fish shop in Vienna, and his income tax card of 1944. He was made branch manager of a fishmonger’s after being dismissed from the army as “n.z.v.” (meaning “not to be used” ) because he had refused to divorce his Jewish-born wife, Lola. This is evidenced in his military service book in red:
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VIENNESE IN EXILE IN BOLIVIA 1938-1948

LIVES OF THE NON-ÉLITE IN VIENNA FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE TO THE NAZI REGIME AND POST-WAR AUSTRIA, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Silver “BOMBILLA” for drinking “MATE”

Bolivia is still one of the poorest countries in South America and in the 1930s it was a developing country that was definitely not the desired destination of refugees from Vienna like the United States, Brazil, Argentina or Chile, where the living conditions were similar to Central Europe. But Bolivia ended up as a refuge for many who did not have any other choice and who were desperate to grab any visa available to be able to flee the Nazi terror. You sometimes had to bribe the diplomatic personnel at the embassies to get visas that later turned out to be faked, but even after a stop to immigration, Bolivia handled the issue flexibly and all those with visas, genuine or faked, were allowed into the country, most of them on agricultural visas, although they had no idea of farming. Fortunately for the refugees did Bolivia not annul faked visas, in contrast to other Latin American countries. The country that offered the refugees from Nazi terror rescue was riddled with economic crises, unrests and military coups and had lost a large part of its territory in the “Chaco War” against Paraguay. The German community that had settled in Bolivia before 1938 was under the influence of the NSDAP, led by the German ambassador. Therefore the possibilities for making a living were very limited for the Austrian and German Jewish immigrants; they were restricted by the German community, the Bolivian administration and the Bolivian professional associations. Only few joined agricultural projects, like those of the mining entrepreneur Mauricio Hochschild, most resorted to small retail trade and craftsmanship, where they competed with the local population and thereby triggered some resentment. Within three years the approximately 7,000 to 8,000 refugees to Bolivia formed the largest foreign community there, but most of them moved on to other countries, such as the United States, Chile, Argentine and Uruguay as soon as it was possible. In 1945 around 4,800 Jewish immigrants still lived in Bolivia. The tropical and sub-tropical climate and the extreme altitude were a huge challenge to the immigrants, but the country saved the lives of many refugees from persecution of the “Third Reich” – it accepted the largest numbers of Jewish refugees from Europe of all Latin American countries relative to its inhabitants and my relatives always preserved a loving memory of the beauty of the country and its colourful population mix.

Karl Elzholz, my great-uncle, husband of my great-aunts Mitzi and later Käthe, two of the three sisters of my grandmother

My great-uncle Karl Elzholz, a mechanic at the Vienna tramways, was married to the youngest sister of my grandmother, Marianne (Mitzi), who was several years younger than him. She was his much loved second wife, after his first wife had died young from a lung disease. They had no children and decided rather late that they had to flee Vienna when Hitler invaded Austria in March 1938. Karl was an enthusiastic socialist and a dedicated patriot of the young Austrian republic. As most of the possible destinations had already closed their borders, he managed to procure a visa for Bolivia as an agricultural worker. Karl was a skilled mountain hiker and they fled Austria across the Alps in the winter 1938/39. The last message that my great-grandparents and my grandparents in Vienna received from them was a postcard from Hermagor in Carinthia with the following message:

Dearest parents, Don’t worry and don’t get excited. We are very well. We eat, drink and wait. We have passed the border without problems. There is a lot of room in the train, so we will sleep well. It is half past six and we are already at the border. Many, many kisses, yours Mitzi. Greetings Karl

Postcard of Hermagor in Carinthia at the border to Italy, January 1939
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BRITISH WORLD WAR II INTERNMENT CAMPS FOR ENEMY ALIENS ON THE ISLE OF MAN: HUTCHINSON INTERNMENT CAMP

LIVES OF THE NON-ÉLITE IN VIENNA FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE TO THE NAZI REGIME AND POST-WAR AUSTRIA, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Passport of Norbert Katz, marked “J” for Jewish by the Nazis
The passport was issued in Vienna on the 7th of July 1939 and Norbert was allowed to take only 30 pounds to the UK

Agi and Norbert at their wedding in Vienna

The husband of Agi, Norbert, an excellent Austrian football player, managed a last-minute escape to England with the help of his sister-in-law, Käthe in a domestic household. Unfortunately as a fit young “enemy alien” he was considered a threat to British military security and interned on the Isle of Man after the outbreak of World War II.

Norbert Katz as a young man

What were possible escape routes out of Austria? As a reaction to the threats against Jews in Germany and Austria and the resulting refugee crisis the US President Roosevelt initiated an international conference on the refugee problem out of Germany. From 6 to 14 July 1938 the Conference of Evian took place in Evian-les-Bains in France. Representatives of 23 countries took part. To allay fears that the United States would demand great concessions, the invited nations were told that no country would be expected to receive a greater number of emigrants than was permitted by its existing legislation and all new programmes would be financed by private agencies and not public monies. The purpose of the meeting was to facilitate the emigration of political refugees from Germany and Austria, not Jews. Despite extensive media coverage the conference ended without achieving significant results. On the contrary, the participating countries stated that they would on no accounts change their existing refugee policies. Representatives of the threatened Jewish communities were deeply disappointed by the results. The governments that participated were still unwilling to solve the problem and fell back on palliatives. The more difficult the tasks became, the smaller their will to deal with them efficiently. An Intergovernmental Committee, headquartered in London, was established to improve coordination, but it was still in a preliminary stage of development when the war broke out.

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“KINDERTRANSPORTS” FROM VIENNA TO GREAT BRITAIN 1938/1939

LIVES OF THE NON-ÉLITE IN VIENNA FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE TO THE NAZI REGIME AND POST-WAR AUSTRIA, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Passports of the twins Susanne and Josephine Katz, issued in Vienna on the 7th of July 1939
The visa for the UK was granted on the 2nd of August 1939 and on the 18th of August the twins Susanne and Josephine Katz landed in Dover. The passport shows a handwritten note: “accompanying mother”

Agi with her twins, Susi and Josi

Agi Katz, the younger sister of my grandmother had found refuge in England as a maid in the household of her sister Käthe’s mistress, but she could not bring her two-year-old girl twins, Susi and Josi with her. Käthe had helped to organise from across the channel to have the girls transported via a “kindertransport” to England to Quaker foster families. Unfortunately the twins had to be separated not only from their mother, but also from each other, which caused serious and long-lasting emotional damage. They were reunited with their parents after the war. The family then decided to become British citizens and remain in the UK. In 1948 the Evening Standard printed a picture of the twins then aged 12, “Flowers at Victoria Station. 12-year-old twins Susan and Josephine Katz of Isleworth (Middlesex). They were waiting for their grandparents, septuagenarians Herr and Frau Ignaz Sobotka to arrive from Vienna for a holiday here.” (see below)

The twins, Susi and Josi, still in Vienna

With the permission of the British, Dutch and Swedish governments aid organisations in “Greater Germany” (Germany and the occupied territories) organised kindertransports in 1938 and 1939 on special trains to send endangered children west to safety. The children on board these trains left their parents and other family members at the railway stations of Prague, Vienna, Frankfurt, Berlin, Leipzig, the free city of Danzig and the Polish city of Zbonszyn. Descriptions and eye witness reports abound of chaos, tears and the pain of the parents. The kindertransports from Austria took the train route through Germany via Cologne, over the border to the Netherlands, up to the Hook of Holland, across the North Sea by boat to dock at Harwich. Some of them were sent to London from there, others were transported to Dovercourt Bay, a holiday camp taken over to accommodate arriving youngsters. Newspaper reports describing the violence of the November pogroms prompted public sympathy and government action in the UK. The Times reported on 14 November 1938, “The position of Austria’s Jews is becoming daily more precarious… Although the more violent demonstrations have ceased the Nazis have prohibited non-Jewish stores, restaurants and cafés from selling to Jews. As no Jewish shops have been allowed to reopen the effect has been to reduce many Jews to a position dangerously near starvation.” The plight of children struck an especially resonant chord. Stories circulated in the UK about attacks against Jewish orphanages and children roaming the countryside on the verge of starvation.

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