Franz Rudolf Cikanek jun.
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Persecution:
Hollabrunn
Memberships
Curriculum Vitae
Franz Rudolf Cikanek Jr. is the legitimate son of the Hollabrunn master basket weaver Franz Cikanek Sr. and his wife Vinzenzia, née Kundela. Vinzenzia Cikanek is widowed and brings a daughter into the marriage. In addition to Franz Cikanek Jr. and the daughter from his first marriage, Franz Cikanek Sr. and Vinzenzia Cikanek have another daughter.
Franz Cikanek Jr. attends elementary school and then grammar school in Hollabrunn. When he was 11 years old, the German Wehrmacht invaded Austria on March 12, 1938. This marked the end of a free and independent Austria.
Franz Cikanek Sr. was an opponent of National Socialism, a member of the SDAP [today: SPÖ] and the Patriotic Front and refused to accept the end of Austria.
Together with his parents and two sisters, Franz Cikanek Jr. listened several times a week from spring 1940 to April 1943 to German-language and Czech broadcasts on English radio, the Swiss station 'Beromünster' and, until the collapse of France, a French station, the so-called 'Feindsender'.
The German soldiers in Stalingrad were Teppen, because as a result of their resistance and endurance, they had nothing to expect but certain death. The Germans had lost the war by the fall of 1943.
In the former Austria, unemployment had been artificially brought about by the NSDAP in order to win the population over to National Socialism. This would have made it easy for the agents of the old Reich to stir up the people against the Austrian government.
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 stations'.
On May 10, 1943, Franz Cikanek junior, Vinzenzia Cikanek and Franz Cikanek senior and their two daughters were arrested by the Gestapo. The two daughters are soon released, the other family members are put on trial. Franz Cikanek Jr. is first briefly imprisoned in May 1943 and then a second time between June 1943 and December 1943. At this time, he is in the 6th grade at the Hollabrunn grammar school and has to drop out of school.
In a trial before the special court on August 17, 1943, Vinzenzia Cikanek is sentenced to five years in prison for radio crimes. Her husband is sentenced to death in the same trial and executed on October 8, 1943 at the Vienna Regional Court.
On September 18, 1944, he began his imprisonment in the Kaiser-Ebersdorf prison in Vienna. He was released on April 3, 1945.
After Austria's liberation in May 1945, he attended a bridging course at the University of Vienna to obtain his Matura. He then graduated from the teacher training college in Wiener Neustadt and started work as a teacher at Hollabrunn elementary school in June 1946. He became involved in the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich
Places
Residence:
Citations
Landesarchiv NÖ
Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstands (DÖW)
