Toni Berdach (geb. Kraus)

Toni Kraus was born in Prague into a Jewish family, the legitimate daughter of down manufacturer Salomon Kraus and his wife Emma, née Mislap. Her strictly religious father later sold his factory and moved to Vienna after Toni Kraus had finished school.

Toni Kraus met Hugo Berdach there around 1901 and married him in Prague on June 7, 1903. She went on to become the mother of two sons and a daughter. After the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the collapse of the Dual Monarchy and the expulsion of the House of Habsburg, Hugo Berdach, who was very successful in his career, moved with his family to Vienna-Döbling, where he had a villa built in 1925. In 1936, he suffers a stroke from which he never recovers.

On March 12, 1938, Toni Berdach witnesses the demise of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation is adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Racial Laws', according to which she is considered a 'full Jew'.

Hugo and Toni Berdach's three children manage to emigrate to England and the United States of America. A visa already issued to Toni and Hugo Berdach for emigration to the United States of America can no longer be claimed due to the outbreak of the Second World War, which is why they have to remain in occupied Austria.

The National Socialist rulers confiscate the Berdach family's property and Toni and Hugo Berdach have to move to a 'Jewish house' at Türkenstrasse 21 in Vienna's 9th district. From there, they were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp on June 20, 1942. While Hugo Berdach was murdered on July 5, 1942, Toni Berdach was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp on January 23, 1943, where she was murdered immediately after her arrival.