Dr. Paul Norbert Kris

Paul Norbert Kris was born in Vienna as the legitimate son of Leo Kris, a court and legal counsel, and Rosa (née Schick). Leo and Rosa Kris were members of Vienna’s Jewish middle class. After elementary school, he attended a high school in the Josefstadt district, where he likely graduated in 1911. In August 1911, Paul Kris converted to Catholicism and enrolled in law school at the University of Vienna and the University of Paris.

Paul Kris was drafted into World War I, served in the 3rd Infantry Regiment (IR 3), was taken prisoner by the Russians, and returned home with the rank of second lieutenant. After completing his studies, he became a law clerk and married Hedwig Bum in 1920. Like Paul Kris, she came from a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna; her father, Heinrich Bum, was a factory owner and a member of the board of directors of Tarrag AG. She, too, had converted to Catholicism. They had three daughters together, born in 1922, 1925, and 1926.

In 1922, Paul Kris established his law practice in Vienna’s 1st district and subsequently represented, among others, many Catholic organizations and religious orders, such as the Dominicans. In addition, he is a court-certified interpreter for Russian and French. Out of conviction, he becomes active in the Christian Social Party.

In 1933, Paul Kris joined the Fatherland Front and campaigned vehemently against National Socialism. The newspaper “Der christliche Ständestaat” was sold in his law office.

On March 12, 1938, Paul Kris and his wife witnessed the collapse of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. Now that the “Nuremberg Race Laws” were also in effect in occupied Austria, Paul and Hedwig Kris were classified as “full Jews.” In Nazi Germany, Jews were prohibited from practicing law. At the same time, he was interrogated by the Gestapo because of his political activities and his opposition to Nazism.

On July 9, 1938, Paul Kris flees to Paris, where he is able to practice law. At the same time, he writes for the dissident newspaper *Die Österreichische Post – Courrier Autrichien*. Hedwig Kris followed him via Bled, Slovenia, in September 1938, as she was still waiting for a visa.

Paul and Hedwig Kris lived together at the Hotel Perey in Paris. When Germany attacked France, Paul Kris enlisted as a “prestataire” in a French unit specifically for foreign fighters and fought against Nazi Germany.

After France’s defeat, he flees to Marseille, where he meets his wife. Accompanied by an American Unitarian convoy, they leave Marseille in September 1940 bound for Lisbon, where, after six weeks, they board a ship bound for Rio de Janeiro. Two years later, on March 1, 1942, they moved to São Paulo.

There, Paul Kris founded a branch of an Austrian exile group that was already active in Rio de Janeiro. This group was called Áustria Livre and was closely aligned with the Free Austrians movement in New York and Toronto, which can be described as legitimist. Among the members of Áustria Livre were Hubert von Minkewitz, Amelio Faccioli Grimani, Count Hubert von Schoenfeldt, Rudolf Aladar Métall, Baron Ludwig Kummer, Titus Bertrand, Karl Schlesinger-Chinatti, Franz Halban, Herbert Orthof, Peter Berger, Josy Jany, Ignaz Haydn, Prof. Richard Wassick, Consul Theodor Putz, Anton Retschek, Professor Fritz Feigl, and Captain P. S. Phillip. The writer Leopold von Andrian-Werburg, who arrived in Brazil in 1940, likely belonged to the group as well.

In São Paulo, they witnessed the liberation of Austria but remained in Brazil. Paul Kris then studied in New York with his wife between 1946 and 1948 (his wife until 1949) and subsequently served as legal counsel to the Austrian Consul General in São Paulo until his death. Both joined the newly founded Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP Association of the Politically Persecuted and Confessors of Austria.

Paul Kris passed away shortly before his 78th birthday and was laid to rest at the Gethsemane Cemetery in São Paulo. After his death, his wife returned to Austria.