Kommerzialrat Felix Bacher

Felix Bacher was born in Vienna as one of four children of the Jewish factory owner Eduard David Bacher and Luise, née Bloch. In 1882, his father founded the weaving mill 'Brüder Bacher & Co., Teppich- und Druck-Fabriken' together with his brother Sigmund Bacher and Karl Frankl, which had around 1500 employees with 800 looms in Vienna-Meidling, Hoheneich, Pürbach and Biela around 1898.

Nothing has survived about Felix Bacher's childhood and youth. Felix Bacher married Frida Fankl and had two children with her.

On March 12, 1938, Felix Bacher witnessed the demise of a 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 Felix Bacher was considered a 'full Jew'.

He fled to Italy, where he worked as a merchant. When Italy joined Hitler's Germany's war on June 10, 1940, Felix Bacher was arrested on June 13, 1940, like all German Jews living in Italy at the time, and deported to the Ferramonti di Tarsia internment camp. Between December 1940 and February 1943, he was forced to perform forced labor in the town of Matha near Rome and then returned to the Ferramonti di Tarsia internment camp.

After the British troops landed in southern Italy in July 1943, the internment camp was liberated by the VIII British Army. Felix Bacher gained his freedom on September 3, 1943. In Italy, Felix Bacher witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic.