Josef Hajnóczi (geb. Haslinger)

Josef Haslinger was born in Budapest as the legitimate son of Josef Haslinger (of the same name) and his wife Bertha, née Grossmann. It cannot be definitively determined whether his parents or he himself later converted from Judaism to Catholicism. Nothing is known about his childhood and youth.

After completing his schooling, he became a journalist and worked for newspapers in Košice between 1897 and 1902, including *Pannonia*, *Kassai Ujság*, and *Abauj-Kassai Közlöny* [Note: Košice is located in the Czech Republic]. In 1900, he changed his last name to “Hajnóczi.” Beginning in October 1902, he served as secretary to Bishop Zsigmond Bubics of Košice. In 1906, he published a treatise on the Bubics affair titled “A Bubics-ügy. Utazás egy püspökség körül’ [English: ‘The Bubics Affair: A Journey Around a Diocese’].

On March 22, 1910, he married Josefine Stossier in Pressburg and subsequently became the father of four children. After 1914, he served in World War I.

Following the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the collapse of the Dual Monarchy, and the expulsion of the House of Habsburg, he worked as a journalist in Vienna. In 1925, his son Josef Nikolaus was born.

Shortly after his son’s birth, he was transferred to Pressburg as a journalist. In 1931, he acquired Czechoslovak citizenship based on his place of origin in Košice. He remained active as a writer throughout the 1930s; in 1936, he arranged for the publication of a book on Masaryk by Ivan Herben and Josef Mach.

As a result of the First Vienna Award of November 2, 1938, Košice was annexed to the Kingdom of Hungary. Consequently, the family lost their Czechoslovak citizenship. His application for Slovak citizenship was rejected on political and anti-Semitic grounds. According to his son’s later account, his father was “neither loyal to the state” nor did he comply with the “Aryan principle.”

In 1939, the state police placed Josef Hajnóczi under political detention for the first time. He remained imprisoned for two months. He then returned to Pressburg.

On November 8, 1944, the German security service arrested him in Pressburg for political reasons and because of his Jewish heritage. His last known address there was Pöllngasse 2. On December 20, 1944, he was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp; later, he was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. There, he was murdered.

His son, Josef Nikolaus Hajnóczi, witnessed the liberation of Austria and the reestablishment of the republic in April and May 1945, respectively. He joined the newly founded Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP Association of the Politically Persecuted and Advocates for Austria. He lived in Austria and the United States of America and died in 2016. His wife also lived to see the liberation and died in Vienna in 1979.