Salzburg STUMBLING BLOCKS

Born on 20 February 1914 in Rubanowka (Ukraine), was reassigned in November 1944 from the Dachau concentration camp to Salzburg to defuse delayed-action bombs. He survived this »suicide mission« but was murdered by two Salzburg SS men on the 4th May 1945, just before the liberation of the city by U.S. troops, in Salzburg’s public gardens (Volksgarten). The unidentified prisoner of at that time, with bullet holes in the back, head and heart, was buried in the local cemetery on 18 July 1945. The non-partisan Provincial Association of Concentration Camp Detainees held its annual commemoration at the grave of the once unknown concentration camp prisoner (the grave no longer exists).

(Research: Gert Kerschbaumer)

Location: Volksgarten

Michael Chartschenko, Volksgarten

Ernest Bonyhadi, son of Erwin Bonyhadi, during his visit in the summer of 2009.

On the first floor of the house at  4 Rainer Strasse lived the Bonyhadi family, registered in Salzburg and native to the city since 1896. Daniel Bonyhadi had remarried after the death of his wife, Klothilde, mother of four sons, Edgar, Manfred, Arthur and Oskar. His second wife, Sara, gave birth to three sons in Salzburg, Ludwig, Ernst and Erwin, and died here in 1931. Daniel Bonyhadi, general agent of the »Victoria« insurance company and board member of the Jewish community was expelled in June 1938 to Vienna and died there, shortly after the deportation of his son Ludwig, on the 5th November, 1939. Daniel Bonyhadis eldest son Edgar, who also had to leave Salzburg, was deported on 20 May 1942 from Vienna to the occupied Soviet Union to Maly Trostinec near Minsk and murdered on 26 May 1942. In addition, another 14 Jews who had lived in the city and province of Salzburg, were murdered in Minsk and Maly Trostinec by the SS. Daniel Bonyhadi´s son Ludwig, who was born in 1899 in Salzburg, was among those 912 Austrian Jews who – after the German invasion of Poland – on 20 October 1939 were deported to Nisko, a town on the German-Soviet demarcation line, and were murdered there. Ludwig Bonyhadi´s wife Gertrude and their daughter Ruth, born in 1928 in Vienna, were deported to Lodz in October 1941 and in August 1944 transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Gertrude died after the liberation on 1 May 1945. Daughter Ruth survived, emigrated to the USA, married (married name Rubel, three daughters: Joan Gertrude Rubel, Miriam Susan Rubel Davidow and Dr. Nancy Louise Rubel) and died in 2001.

(Research: Gert Kerschbaumer)

Location: Rainerstr. 4

Familie Bonyhadi, Rainerstr. 4

Margarethe »Gretl« ETLINGER, born on 9 March 1888 (as Margarethe Horn) in Budapest, divorced, moved in January 1933 from Berlin-Wilmersdorf to Salzburg. Margarethe ETLINGER was not involved with any particular organization; she was arrested by the Gestapo for the first time after the war began in 1939, then again in August 1941, for anti-Nazi statements. There was no formal trial, Margarethe ETLINGER was deported to Ravensbrueck concentration camp in November 1941 and murdered there 14 March 1942.

(Research: Gert Kerschbaumer)

Location: Ernest Thun Str. 7 Margarethe Etlinger, Ernest Thun Str. 7

The Jewess Helene FROEHLICH, born 1 May 1871, was arrested at her home on 20 February 1940, sent to Vienna, on 20 August 1942 deported to Terezín and on 18 December 1943 transferred to Auschwitz and murdered there.

(Research: Gert Kerschbaumer)

Location: Stelzhamerstr. 14

Helene Fröhlich, Stelzhamerstr. 14

Dr. Johann LANGER, born 1878 in Neuhaus (Bohemia), resided on the first floor of the house at 4 Rainer Str. with his wife Johanna and their children Elisabeth, Hertha and Martha.
High Provincial Court councillor Johann LANGER was the Senate chairman of the provincial court of Salzburg and head of the court cases against illegal Nazis who were involved in the July 1934 coup. During this failed coup eight people, two from the army, died in Lamprechtshausen. The sentenced Nazis were either pardoned after a few years or released no later than in March 1938. After the annexation of Austria by the Nazis in 1938 those who were responsible for the military defeat of the Nazi putsch and the prosecution of the perpetrators were »sharply accounted for«. Judge Dr. LANGER was deported to Dachau concentration camp on 7 April 1938 and so tortured by the SS that he »put an end to his life« on 12 October 1938 as a concentration camp survivor reported.

(Research: Gert Kerschbaumer; Foto: Fam. Mosshammer)

Location: Rainerstr. 4

Johann Langer, Rainerstr. 4

Ernst LÖWY, born on 17 January, 1900 in Netluk near Leitmeritz (Bohemia, Austro-Hungary), came in October 1914 to Salzburg, where he served a trade apprenticeship under Oswald Löwy, 6 Mirabellplatz. As employee there, he married Ida Pick, born on 8 February, 1901 in Ottnang am Hausruck who became a son, Herbert, born 27 August, 1926 in Salzburg. The Löwy family lived from 1926 to 1938 in the house at 5/III Linzergasse, fled to Prague, were deported on 24 October, 1942 to Terezin and on 6 September, 1943 to Auschwitz – death data unknown. (Source: Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance)

The house at 5  Linzergasse was the property of the Jewish family Fürst, who had lived there since 1892, and also had its business (textile trade in the 1st floor, perfumery and haberdashery on the ground floor) there. In 1939, the property (Registry Nr. 565) was »aryanized« by Josef Falkensteiner. (After 1945 no restitution took place, only an out-of-court settlement).

Arthur Fürst, born 1883 in Salzburg, was able to flee with his family to the USA.
His sister, Martha, born 1886 in Salzburg, with the married name Stein, was seriously ill and died in July 1938 in Salzburg (Jewish cemetery in Aigen).
Sister Hedwig, born 1889 in Salzburg, with the married name Bisentz, was also co-owner of the house, but lived with her family in Vienna; Hedwig Bisentz died in Terezin 14 April 1943.

(Research: Gert Kerschbaumer; Foto: Walter Schweinöster)

Location: Linzer Gasse 5 Familie Löwy

Born on 7 August 1921, Rosa LEEB was the oldest of three children. Already from childhood she suffered from epileptic seizures, which is why she was admitted as an in-patient in 1935 to the Salzburg province sanatorium for mental and mood illness (today, Christian Doppler Clinic) with the typical for that time diagnosis of »hereditary epilepsy«. After six years of treatment, the 19 year old woman became part of the first transport out of the sanatorium to the extermination centre at Hartheim Castle near Alkoven in Upper Austria where she was murdered. Rosa LEEB was number 31 on the 68 person departure list. The Nazi concealment tactics meant that Rosa Leeb´s parents received the news of her death, as with the delivery of her last personal items, from the sanatorium at Bernburg an der Saale in Germany.

(Research: Johannes Hofinger; Foto: privat)

Location: Herrengasse 12

Rosa Leeb, Herrengasse 12

Dr. Johann JELLINEK, born in 1875 in Schumitz (Moravia, Austria-Hungary), and his wife Gisela, born in 1877 in Vienna, lived from 1907 to 1938 on the second floor of 1 Dreifaltigkeitsgasse (Platzl 2) in Salzburg. This was also the doctor’s office, as noted in the commercial register of the city of Salzburg until 1938:

Dr. Johann JELLINEK, medical officer of health, secondary physician in emeritus status and former assistant to the general hospital, specialist for skin, urinary and venereal diseases and cosmetics, Radiation diathermy, high altitude sun, light and sound treatment.

Son, Kurt, born 1907 in Salzburg, was also a doctor and ultimately had his practice in Gnigl, Linzer Bundesstraße. In 1938 he and his wife, Maria, managed to flee to Middleboro, Massachusetts.

In May 1938 Dr. Johann JELLINEK was forced to give up his medical practice. The couple fled to Vienna-Leopoldstadt and unsuccessfully made preparations to emigrate to Shanghai.
On 10 September, 1942 the couple were deported to Terezín. Dr. Johann JELLINEK was murdered there on 21 March, 1943; his wife Gisela on 9 August 1943.

(Research: Gert Kerschbaumer)

Location: Dreifaltigkeitsgasse 1/ Platzl 2

Gisela & Johann Jellinek, Linzergasse 1

Marie HASLAUER, Jehovah’s Witness, was arrested on 10 November 1939, deported to Ravensbrueck concentration camp, transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp and then murdered on 27 September 1942.

Her husband Johann HASLAUER, Jehovah’s Witness, was arrested on 9 November 1939 for refusing military service, deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and murdered on 12 August 1940.

(Research: Gert Kerschbaumer)

Location: Getreidegasse 33

Marie & Josef Haslauer, Getreidegasse 33

Franz MITTENDORFER, born on 10 September 1903 in St. Georgen, bricklayer, married to Theresa, residing at 15 Land Str., Salzburg Itzling (owned by his wife), was arrested after the war began, and on 24 November 1939 sentenced to death by the Reich Military Tribunal for refusing military service and – together with five other Jehovah’s Witnesses from the province of Salzburg – beheaded on 6 January 1940 in Berlin-Plötzensee. His wife, Theresa, survived incarceration in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp.

(Research: Gert Kerschbaumer)

Location: Landstraße 15

Franz Mittendorfer