Franz Groll

Franz Samek was born in Vienna as the illegitimate son of the tram driver of the same name, Franz Groll, and Maria Samek. Two years after his birth, his parents married and the child took his father's name. Nothing has been preserved about his childhood and youth. As an adult, Franz Groll followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Vienna transport company as a streetcar driver. Although he was a communist, he was not politically active in the 1920s and 1930s. He married Maria Gstottner in 1923, but the marriage remained childless.

On March 12, 1938, Franz Groll witnessed the demise of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. Even in occupied Austria, he remained an employee of the Vienna transport company. In November 1938, he leaves the Catholic Church.

In 1944, Franz Groll listens to foreign radio stations, so-called 'enemy stations', which is why he is imprisoned on April 26, 1944 for 'violation of the broadcasting ordinance' until May 15, 1944. On the day of his release, he tells close Nazi relatives that the war will be lost in September 1944 and that they will then be called to account.

His close relatives denounce Franz Groll and he is arrested again on May 16, 1944, just one day after his release from prison. Without interrogation or trial, he was deported to the Dachau concentration camp on July 9, 1944 for statistically hostile statements. From there, he was transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp on August 25, 1944, where he was murdered on November 15, 1944.

On December 11, 1944, his wife Maria Groll received the official death notice stating that Franz Groll had died of myocarditis.

Maria Groll witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic in April and May 1945 and joined the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP Comradeship of the Politically Persecuted and Confessors for Austria.