Austria

Author: Marliese Mendel

The Institute for Historical Social Research (IHSF) has been dealing with the hitherto unwritten history of Jewish trade union members for some time. The ÖGB archive took this as an opportunity to search for Jewish trade unionists in the ÖGB's holdings together with the historian and author Dieter J. Hecht from the Academy of Science: for courageous and steadfast people, many of whom became victims of the inhumane racial policies of the National Socialists. Countless were arrested, deported to concentration camps, and murdered. Many had to flee or were able to escape. Others joined the partisans. (An initial overview.)

Jewish women in the labour movement

Jewish women were active in the labour movement - as trade union members, as functionaries or as women's rights campaigners. So far, hardly anyone has traced their biographies. Nevertheless, some are known: for example, those of the women's rights campaigner Therese Schlesinger and the founder of the Arbeiterkammer Women's Section, Käthe Leichter.  

However, little is known about Mathilde Eisler, a member of the executive board of the Arbeiterkammer Women's Section, an insurance employee and trade unionist. In 1910, she supported the Association of Home Workers; in 1913, she initiated a section for women and girls in the trade union "Association of Austrian Insurance Employees" and was a member of the Women's Reich Committee, which demanded women's suffrage. Until her retirement she was involved in women's organizations and wrote numerous articles for the Arbeiterinnen-Zeitung and similar publications. 

Käthe Leichter was murdered in the Nazi killing center in Bernburg in 1942. Mathilde Eisler's date of death is unknown, but she died in the ghetto in Łódź (Poland). Therese Schlesinger managed to escape to France; she died in a sanatorium in Blois in 1940.

Jewish trade unionists 

The biographies of Jewish men in the trade union are better researched. They provide insight into their trade union activities before and - if they survived the Nazi terror - after the end of the war in 1945.  

Walter Stern experienced the first years of the Nazi era in Vienna. His youth was full of humiliation and fear. Nazis no longer wanted to play football with him, he had to leave school and change to a "Jews' school", he heard about friends who were deported to concentration camps. The Hitler Youth hunted him down and beat him up. His parents sent him to Palestine to keep him safe. He returned to Vienna after the war and became a worker’s council.

Died in the corridor - Karl Pick 

Probably one of the first victims of the National Socialists was the chairman of the Association of Commercial Employees (now the gpa trade union), Karl Pick. The skillful orator organized meetings, demonstrations, mass walks and had hundreds of thousands of scattered leaflets distributed to lend weight to the demands for Sunday rest and a law on shop closing hours, and finally to push them through.  

As a national councilor in the First Republic, he campaigned for the passing of the Salaried Employees Act (1921) and the Salaried Employees Insurance Act (1926), as well as for the establishment of a sanatorium, a women's clinic, and a pulmonary sanatorium.  

After the so-called "Anschluss" in March 1938, Pick suffered a broken hip and was admitted to the Kaufmännische Spital (Commercial Hospital), which he co-founded - however, as a Jew he was not entitled to a room - he died in the corridor.

Jewish trade unionists murdered in concentration camps

The list of trade unionists murdered by National Socialists is long. Among them was Julius Bermann, the pioneer of white-collar workers' rights and tenant protection. The co-founder of the Union of Metalworkers and secretary and chairman of the Metalworkers' Union, Heinrich Beer. He campaigned above all for the abolition of the workbook and for reducing working hours.  

False accusation - Julius Weiß 

The chairman of the Chemical Workers' Union, Julius Weiß, joined the resistance after the February 1934 struggles. He was arrested together with other trade unionists on 19th of October 1938. They were accused of "having passed on political or trade union news to foreign agencies through Viktor Stein in the interests of the RS (Revolutionary Socialists) or the Marxist trade unions". The fact that Viktor Stein, a Jew, was already in prison at that time was not considered. Weiß died on 29 October 1939 in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Acquitted, arrested, murdered - Viktor Stein

Viktor Stein was an editor of the weekly newspaper "Der Metallarbeiter", a contributor to the magazine "Arbeit & Wirtschaft", a popular speaker and teacher at the Workers' College, a member of the Vienna Municipal Council as well as the National Council, where he was particularly active in social and labour law.  

In 1938 he was arrested and charged with high treason. After 15 months in prison, the trial took place, and he was acquitted. But the Gestapo was waiting outside the Vienna Regional Court to arrest him. In December 1939 he was deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and murdered on April 28, 1940.

Jewish trade unionists on the run

Some Jewish trade unionists managed to escape from the National Socialists - like the editor of the newspaper "Der Aufstieg" of the garment makers' union and co-founder of the trade union schools and popular educators, Richard Wagner. He fled to Yugoslavia in 1938 and joined the partisans. After organizing a rescue ship for old people, children, and refugees on the island of Rab, he "fell himself fighting the brown vandals". A bomb blew him up.

The long flight of Manfred Ackermann

Manfred Ackermann, head of the youth section in the Central Association of Commercial Employees in Austria (now the gpa trade union) and editor of the trade union newspaper "Angestellten-Zeitung", fought against the Austrofascists during the February 1934 struggles and for this they imprisoned him in the Wöllersdorf detention camp. After his release in March 1938, he fled via Italy and Brussels to Paris, where he was sent to an internment camp in 1939. 

In 1940, he managed to escape via Spain and Portugal to the USA. He began to rebuild his life, working as an unskilled labourer in the garment industry, becoming a worker council and active in the textile workers' union. After his retirement, he returned to Austria in 1964.

The revealer - Berthold König

The central secretary of the railway workers' union, Berthold König, was particularly hated by the fascists. He had uncovered the "Hirtenberg arms affair" in 1933. 40 railway wagons full of weapons arrived at the Hirtenberg arms factory from Italy at the behest of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. 84,000 rifles and 980 machine guns were to be modernized and then delivered on to authoritarian-ruled Hungary. But the railway workers refused to transport the weapons and the attempted bribe - König was offered 150,000 shillings (a fortune at the time) - also failed. 

König managed to escape to the USA. In 1950, he returned to attend the railway workers' trade union conference. He said: "No word or deed is lost, decades later the seeds still sprout which steadfast and unbowed fighters of labour have sunk into the hearts of their fellow men." 

Then as now, it was and is important to sow the seeds of solidarity, trade unionism and anti-fascism.