Disenfranchised, Deported, Exterminated - The Victims of Maly Trascjanec
In this section we will trace the path of the victims from Vienna to Maly Trascjanec. Accordingly, we concentrate primarily on the victim group of those deported from Vienna. However, where it is possible and seems reasonable, the other victim groups will also be mentioned.
Display board on the "racial theory" of the Nuremberg Laws
In 1935, the National Socialists passed the Nuremberg Laws. With these they defined who they considered to be Jewish. These people were deprived of numerous rights, such as the right to marry whom they wanted. Until 1943, the scope was tightened further and further. After Austria became part of the National Socialist German Reich in spring 1938, the Nuremberg Laws also applied on Austrian territory. They were in force until the end of National Socialist rule.[1]
The chances of survival at the extermination site Maly Trascjanec were extremely low, as only very few prisoners were sent off to work. Trying to survive was therefore extremely difficult. A decisive factor for "survival" in the ghetto were the qualifications that the deportees had declared upon arrival. Hanuš Münz, for example, talks about two of his friends who had truthfully reported "miner" as their last occupation, because they had actually worked in a mine. In contrast, he and his friend Leo Kraus had invented a profession, that of a "keysmith". This saved their lives, at least for a time.[2]
Sources:
[1] Cf. https://www.bpb.de/politik/hintergrund-aktuell/68999/nuernberger-gesetze#:~:text=Sie%20waren%20die%20Legitimationsgrundlage%20f%C3%BCr,6%20Millionen%20J%C3%BCdinnen%20und%20Juden, accessed 6/29/2021.
[2] Cf. Tomáš Federovič, The Extermination Site Maly Trostenets and the Jews from the Terezín Ghetto, in: Peter Junge-Wentrup (Hrsg.), The Trostenets Extermination Site within European Commemoration. Materials from the Minsk International Conference 21st – 24th March 2013, Dortmund 2014, pp. 41–45.