Kommerzialrat Heinz Hans Apenzeller

Photo von Heinz Apenzeller — Heinz Apenzeller
Image: DÖW

Personalia

Born:

April 25, 1918, Vienna

Died:

July 28, 2007, Vienna

Profession:

Merchant

Persecution:

Imprisonment 13.03.1938 - 02.06.1938,
Imprisonment 10.11.1938 - 18.12.1938,
Imprisonment 18.03.1942 - 30.11.1943,
Auschwitz concentration camp 30.11.1943 - 18.01.1945,
Mauthausen concentration camp 18.01.1945 - 05.05.1945

KZ Number:

165122, 118512

Honors:

Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria

Memberships

ÖVP Comradeship of the politically persecuted and confessors for Austria

Curriculum Vitae

Heinz Hans Apenzeller was born in Vienna as the legitimate son of the Jewish family Josef Mandel and Blanka Apenzeller. He went to elementary school in Vienna, graduated from high school and, according to his own statements, was briefly a student.

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 Race Laws', according to which Heinz Apenzeller was considered a 'full Jew'.

After his release from prison, he supported women whose husbands had been imprisoned for political or racial reasons. When the Gestapo became aware of this, they arrested him a third time on March 18, 1942. On November 30, 1942, Hein Apenzeller was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. When the Red Army approached Auschwitz concentration camp in January 1945, he was transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp on January 18, 1945. There he witnessed the liberation by the US Army on 5 May 1945.

In liberated Austria, he joined the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich