The Photo Series by Robert Haas
During the phase of expropriation and disenfranchisement of the Viennese Jews, a photo series by the photographer Robert Haas was created. The respected photographer and graphic artist received commissions from wealthy Jewish families to photograph the homes they had left behind, which was not without danger. These photos were intended to serve as mementos in exile or on the run and also formed the basis for later restitution claims. However, the photos only depict a small percentage of the looted property, because there are no pictorial documents of the many flats and communal buildings that were not furnished in an upper middle-class manner. The photos can, however, give us an impression of how brutally the National Socialists destroyed the middle-class existences of "completely normal Viennese". Haas was also persecuted as Jewish and fled Austria in 1938 to escape the Nazi regime. The photo series taken in 1937/38 now contains seven negative series, two of the flats could be identified.
Apartment of the Stern family, bathroom
Apartment of the Stern family, staircase
Apartment of the Stern family, living room
The Stern family and their abandoned palace (Liechtensteinstrasse 53–55, 1090 Vienna)
Louise and Gustav Stern had Czechoslovakian citizenship and lived in the Palais Kranz in Vienna's 9th district. They fled to Prague as early as 14 March 1938. Everything they could not take with them was auctioned off at the Dorotheum pawnshop in Vienna on 9 July 1939. After Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Nazi regime in 1939, the Secret State Police issued a confiscation order on 6 May 1941, confiscating "all standing and lying property as well as all rights and claims of Gustav Stern [...] for reasons of public security and order with the aim of later confiscation in favour of the German Reich"[1]. Louise then took her own life. Gustav presumably managed to escape.
Apartment of László Berczeller, bedroom
Apartment of László Berczeller, desk
Apartment of László Berczeller, living room
Laszlo Berczeller's empty apartment (Bleichergasse 6, 1090 Vienna)
The photo series "Berczeller Apartment" is dated 8 June 1938. László Berczeller was a bio- and food chemist; he was a pioneer in research on soy-based foods. His whereabouts at the time of the Anschluss are not clear, but his wife Selma Buchwald, also a chemist, had to submit a declaration of assets in which she stated her husband as living in Budapest. László Berczeller survived through the support of Quakers, but died completely impoverished as a result of malnutrition and illness in Switzerland in 1955. The fate of his wife Selma Berczeller is unknown.
Sources:
[1] ÖstA, AVA, property registration (Vermögensanmeldung) 19190, quoted from: Andres Brunner, Barbara Staudinger, Hannes Sulzenbacher, Mirjam Zadoff (Hg.), Die Stadt ohne Juden Ausländer Muslime Flüchtlinge. Exhibition catalog of the Jewish Museum Augsburg Swabia and the NS Documentation Center for the December 2019-March 2020 exhibition (Ausstellungskatalog des Jüdischen Museums Augsburg Schwaben und des NS-Dokumentationszentrum zur Ausstellung Dezember 2019-März 2020 )
- Dieter J. Hecht (ed.), Michaela Raggam-Blesch (ed.), Heidemarie Uhl (ed.), Letzte Orte, Die Wiener Sammellager und die Deportationen 1941/42 (Berlin 2019).
- Dieter J. Hecht, Eleonore Lappin-Eppel, Michael Raggam-Blesch, Topographie der Shoah. Gedächtnisorte des zerstörten jüdischen Wien (Wien 32018).
- Exhibition catalog Jewish Museum Augsburg Swabia, NS Documentation Center Munich, The city without Jews, foreigners, Muslims, refugees (Ausstellungskatalog Jüdisches Museum Augsburg Schwaben, NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, Die Stadt ohne Juden, Ausländer, Muslime, Flüchtlinge).
- Christa Mehany-Mitterrutzner, Vernichtung – Deportation nach Maly Trostinec, 1942. From the archive in: Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance (Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes) (ed.) Deportation und Vernichtung – Maly Trostinec. Jahrbuch 2019 (Wien 2019).