Liberation and Last Massacres 1945

Liberation and Last Massacres 1945 In early 1945, about 5,800 Jews still lived in Vienna. Apart from so-called "U-Boote" or "Mischlinge" who were considered Jews ("Geltungsjuden") and members of the "Ältestenrat der Juden in Wien", most of them were Jews married to an "Aryan" spouse in a so-called "mixed marriage." These people had not yet been deported due to the "categories" they belonged to but they lived in constant fear of possible deportation. At the end of March 1945, Soviet troops reached the Austrian frontier. On April 6, the general offensive against Vienna began, after the town had been declared a defence zone by Reichsstatthalter Baldur von Schirach. The battle of Vienna lasted a week, and on April 13, 1945, the city and the Jews living in it were finally liberated. The Second World War, and with it the Nazi regime ended in Europe on May 8, 1945, with the unconditional surrender of the German Armed Forces. However, in this phase of the collapse of the Wehrmacht SS units were still murdering Jews. Those who had most reason to fear for their lives were those who had escaped deportation as "U-Boote" and had gone underground. On April 11, 1945, as the battle in Vienna had been raging for a few days already a unit of the Waffen-SS massacred nine Jews at Förstergasse 7 in the second district of Vienna. Dr. Nelly Blum, Arthur Holzer, Arthur Klein, Erna and Grete Klüger-Langer, Marie Margolin, Kurt Mezei, Emil Pfeiffer, and Genia Jenny Schaier had taken refuge from the fighting in the cellar of Förstergasse 7. At about 3.30 p.m. a unit of the Waffen-SS which was quartered in Förstergasse 10 embarked on a house inspection in Förstergasse 7. The SS ordered all the people in the cellar to show their papers, called out the Jews named above, and took them to the entrance of the house. In the evening they were led to the bomb crater in the roadway in front of the house, and murdered by shots to the back of the head. A few hours later Red Army soldiers arrived in Förstergasse: this was at 3.30 a.m. on April 12, 1945. In addition to this crime other Jews in Vienna fell victim to the SS terror just before liberation. On April 2, Hermann Sanders, a "Mischling" who had been dismissed from the police force, was, on the grounds of alleged fraud as "Volkschädling", condemned to death by a court constituted of members of the SS and the police - on account of his being a former police member - and hurriedly executed by the SS. Four days later members of the SS arrested Hermann David, who lived in Rögergasse in Vienna IX., on the grounds of "political activity" und forced him to go with them to the nearby SS barracks in Seegasse 9. From that day on, he has been regarded as missing and has since been declared dead by a court of law. According to witnesses a further murder occurred in Vienna-Kagran on April 12, 1945, where the SS shot dead Isidor Katz on Biberhaufenweg, in circumstances which have never been clarified.	Kurt Mezei (born on May 13, 1924) was killed by the SS on April 11, 1945, in Förstergasse 7. The photo was taken in 1942 and shows him with his twin sister Ilse, who was killed during an air raid in March 1945.
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