Dr. Jakob Ehrlich

Jakob Ehrlich was born in Bistritz am Hostein [Bystřice pod Hostýnem in today's Czech Republic]. He joined the Zionist movement founded by Theodor Herzl in his youth. After graduating from high school, he moved to Vienna, studied law at the University of Vienna and joined the national Jewish academic association Ivria. Parallel to his studies, he set up Zionist organizations throughout Austria-Hungary.

In 1908, Jakob Ehrlich finally received his doctorate in law and completed his year in court. In 1912, he was elected as a representative of the Zionists on the board of the Jewish Community of Vienna. He served as an officer during the First World War and was deployed on the Austrian-Russian border.

After returning home, he became a lawyer and was elected to the Vienna City Council in 1919 as a representative of the Zionist movement, where he remained a member until 1923. He was also elected President of the Zionist Association for Austria several times and Vice President of the Jewish Community in 1936.

After the socialist uprising in February 1934 and the establishment of the chancellor's dictatorship in the corporative state, Jakob Ehrlich was appointed a member of the 64-member Vienna City Council under Mayor Richard Schmitz. Until 1938, he is the official representative of the Jewish community in Vienna City Hall.

In this function, Jakob Ehrlich witnesses the downfall of free and independent Austria on March 12, 1938 with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. Afterwards, on March 18, 1938, the Jewish community in Vienna was searched and closed by members of the SS and Jakob Ehrlich was arrested along with the president Desider Friedmann and the director of the IKG Josef Löwenherz as well as other Jewish functionaries in the course of the National Socialist persecution of Jews. (The second Vice President Robert Stricker had already been arrested on March 14, 1938). In the course of the raid, donation receipts for the Vaterländische Front were found during the search of the IKG's premises. The campaign donations amounting to 800,000 schillings for an organization that advocated Austrian statehood were the official reason for the arrests. Jakob Ehrlich was also accused of planning, together with Mayor Schmitz, to arm the workforce against the impending National Socialist takeover before March 12, 1938.

Following the discovery of the receipt, Adolf Eichmann blackmailed the IKG into paying the same amount by deporting the members of the Presidium, including Jakob Ehrlich, to the Dachau concentration camp on April 2, 1938 on the so-called Prominent Transport. Jakob Ehrlich arrived at the Dachau concentration camp and was murdered at the SS shooting range in Prittlbach near Dachau on May 17, 1938. He was one of the first Jewish citizens to be murdered in a concentration camp after the occupation of Austria. His urn is buried in the Jewish cemetery of the Central Cemetery.

Jakob Ehrlich's wife Irma Ehrlich, née Hutter, and his son Paul are able to emigrate to the United States of America via Great Britain, where his son Paul works to save Jewish children.

Former Viennese Zionists found a Jacob Ehrlich Society in London and name a B'nai B'rith lodge after him in Tel Aviv.