Franz Cikanek sen.

Franz Cikanek was born to a socialist working-class couple in Elbekostelec in Bohemia [now Kostelec nad Labem in the Czech Republic]. He attended elementary and secondary school there and then completed an apprenticeship as a basket weaver. He then first worked in Warnsdorf [today Varnsdorf in the Czech Republic] and moved to Vienna in 1909 to pursue this trade. During this time, he joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) [now SPÖ], but later left again. In 1917, he was drafted into the IR 28 in the First World War and served on the Austro-Italian front.

After returning from the war, he worked as a basket weaver in Vienna again. In 1923, he marries the Hollabrunn widow Vinzenzia Hrabanek, née Kudela, who brings a daughter and her late husband's basket weaving business into the marriage. He moves to Hollabrunn in Lower Austria and takes over his wife's business. With Vinzenzia Cikanek, he has a son, Franz Cikanek jun, and a daughter.

As an opponent of National Socialism and a staunch Austrian, he joins the Patriotic Front in 1937. On March 12, 1938, Franz Cikanek Sr. witnessed the downfall of a free and independent Austria when the National Socialist German Reich invaded Austria.

Together with his daughters and Franz Cikanek Jr, Franz Cikanek Sr. and Vinzenzia Cikanek listen several times a week from spring 1940 to April 1943 to the German-language and Czech broadcasts of English radio, the Swiss station 'Beromünster' and, until the collapse of France, a French station, the so-called 'Feindsender'.

His son passes on what he hears and what his parents have translated from Czech to his classmates at school. Classmates passed it on to their parents, who reported it to the Gestapo.

By the end of April 1943, rumors were already circulating in Hollabrunn that an arrest by the Gestapo was imminent, which is why the Cikanek family stopped listening to 'enemy broadcasts'.

On 10 May 1943, Franz Cikanek Sr, Vinzenzia Cikanek, Franz Cikanek Jr and the two daughters were arrested by the Gestapo. The two daughters are soon released, the other family members are put on trial.

In a trial before the Special Court on August 17, 1943, Franz Cikanek Sr. is sentenced to death and his wife Vinzenzia to five years in prison for radio crimes. In a further trial before the Special Court on August 29, 1944, Franz Cikanek Jr. was sentenced to one year in prison for defeating the military.

Franz Cikanek Sr. was murdered by guillotine on October 8, 1943 in the Vienna Regional Court.