Hofrat Dr. Otto Lazar

Otto Lazar was born in Vienna as one of eight children of the Jewish couple Adolf Josef and Theresia Caesarine Lazar. His father, who died in 1910, was a building inspector and director of the Austrian local railroad. After primary and secondary school, he enrolled in technical chemistry at the Vienna University of Technology in 1909 and graduated in 1914.

Otto Lazar was drafted into the First World War. He was drafted into the First World War and was taken prisoner of war in Russia, from which he returned in 1918 as part of a prisoner exchange. He then worked briefly at Dynamit-Nebel-AG before becoming an assistant at the Chair of Chemistry at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna. In 1923, he moved to the library of the Technical University (TH) as a library assistant and was promoted to State Librarian in 1928.

On March 12, 1938, he witnessed the demise of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation was adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Racial Laws', according to which Otto Lazar was considered a 'full Jew'.

On April 1, 1938, he was given professional leave and dismissed in November 1939. Otto Lazar is then unemployed. On April 14, 1941, he emigrated to Stockholm to join his sisters, who had already fled there, with the intention of continuing his journey to the United States of America.

However, in June 1941, Otto Lazar received a letter from the American embassy in Stockholm informing him that his application for a visa for the USA was suspended as long as his sisters were in a "territory controlled by Germany". Otto Lazar would never be able to travel on to the USA.

He was unemployed in Sweden. In March 1942, he was informed by the German legation in Stockholm that he had lost his German citizenship. After that, he is unemployed and receives support from the Intellectual Refugee Committee and the Catholic community in Stockholm.

In April 1942, Otto Lazar receives a Swedish alien's passport, initially valid for one year. According to an official note from October 1942, he lived in seclusion and devoted himself exclusively to scientific research. In August 1943 - at this point he had already been in Sweden for more than two years - he applied for a work permit as an archive employee at the Statens Hantverksinstitut, an institute for skilled trades, in Stockholm, which was initially only granted for eight weeks, but was eventually extended. There was a shortage of workers in the laboratory, as male employees had been drafted into the army.

In April and May 1945, Otto Lazar witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic in Stockholm. In September 1945, he applied to have his nationality changed from 'German' to 'Austrian' in his passport. When he then applied for a residence permit for the last time in February 1946, he stated the purpose of his stay as: "Waiting for the journey home".

In May 1946, Otto Lazar finally returned to his native city and was able to resume his work in the library of the Technical University at the end of the month; in September 1952, he married Wilhelmine Szabó, née Horak. In August 1946, he became Library Director of the Technical University.

As Library Director of the Technical University, he was responsible for setting up the 'Documentation Center of Technology'. It existed from 1950 to 1973 and was later renamed the 'Austrian Documentation Center for Technology and Economy'. In 1955, when the Federal Ministry of Trade and Industry suggested a development concept for the campus of the Technical University on Getreidemarkt, Otto Lazar proposed bringing together the book collections of all the chemistry institutes. As a result (1965-1972), the so-called 'Chemistry Tower' was built according to plans by architect Karl Kupsky.