Dr. Carl Maria Aristides Bosse (geb. Basseches)

Carl Maria Aristides Basseches was born in Vienna, the son of the Jewish couple, the merchant Julius Basseches and Amalia, née Löwinsohn. After elementary school, he attended the k.k. Franz Josefs Gymnasium in Vienna's 1st district [today: BG and BRG Stubenbastei], where he graduated in 1896. In the same year, he enrolled in chemistry and physics at the University of Vienna. In 1900, he changed his surname to 'Bosse', converted to Catholicism and completed his doctorate at the university.

He worked as a chemist, married the Catholic Ilonka Maria Sajko, who was born in Haidin near Pettau [today: Hajdina in Ptuj in Slovenia] in the Slovenian part of Styria, and became the father of a daughter. They bought an apartment at Nussdorferstraße 77 in Vienna's 9th district.

On March 12, 1938, Carl Bosse 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 Carl Bosse was considered a 'full Jew'.

He immediately lost his job as a chemist. In 1940, he was forced to leave the family home at the instigation of the other residents. He was even banned from entering the family home, where his wife and daughter continued to live. Carl Bosse finally finds accommodation in a Jewish communal apartment in Rotenturmstraße. His wife provided him with food and everything he needed.

In the spring of 1941, Carl Bosse was arrested for the first time and detained in a Jewish area in Sperlgasse in Vienna's 2nd district. Only the tireless pleas of his wife Ilonka Maria Bosse to the Gestapo officers Anton Brunner and Ernst Girzick, who insulted her in the most rude manner, made it possible for Carl Bosse not to be deported, to be released in late fall 1941 and to return to his apartment in Rotenturmstaße.

When a Gestapo round-up took place in Rotenturmstrasse at the beginning of May 1942, Carl Bosse was not present as he was secretly staying overnight with his wife and daughter. He was arrested the very next day and taken from Castellezgasse to Sperlgasse. This time, Ilonka Maria Bosse did not succeed in getting her husband released, despite her best efforts. She is held for four days for 'adverse conduct'.

Between April 9 and June 5, 1942, a total of four deportation transports with 4,000 Jewish men, women and children departed from Vienna's Aspang train station for Izbica. The town of Izbica is located around 18 km south of the district capital Krasnystow in the district of Lublin. The original population of around 6,000 people consisted of around 90 percent Jews. Due to deportations from other parts of Poland, from the 'Protectorate' (including Austrians), from the 'Old Reich' and from Vienna, the number of Jewish residents rose at times to up to 12,000 people.

Obviously to make room for the new arrivals, around 2,200 Jews were deported to Krasnystow on 24 March 1942.

After a break of a few months, an SS 'resettlement staff' took over the organization of the resumed deportations in the summer of 1942. From this point on at the latest, Izbica must be seen as a 'waiting room' for the Belzec extermination camp, whose occupancy was determined by the capacity of the Belzec gassing facilities. On October 15, 1942, 10,000 Jews were rounded up at the Izbica train station, 5,000 of whom were transported away. This selection led to a massacre in which around 500 people were shot.

None of the 4,000 Austrian Jews deported to Izbica survived. It can be assumed that Carl Bosse was probably gassed in the Belzec concentration camp after 15 October 1942.

After the liberation of Austria in May 1945, his wife Ilonka Maria Bosse became involved in the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich.

[Note: Carl Bosse spelled his name with a 'K' in the civil register, but he himself used the spelling of Carl with a 'C'.]