Hofrat Josef Alois Divjak

Josef Alois Divjak was born in Vienna as the legitimate son of bus conductor Josef Divjak and Maria, née Petek. After completing his schooling, he joined the postal service at the beginning of the First World War. Soon afterwards, he organized himself with the civil servants' union.

In 1920, he married Josefine Rohatsch, a postal worker, and subsequently became the father of a son and a daughter. He was also involved in the civil servants' union in the 1930s and was a member of the Vaterländische Front.

On March 12, 1938, Josef Divjak witnessed the demise of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. Due to his trade union activities, he was arrested by the Gestapo on March 15, 1938. He is released from prison on March 28, 1938, is exempted from duty and is dismissed as a postal worker on March 21, 1939.

After unsuccessful attempts to find a job or a way of earning a living, he returns to Austria. After unsuccessful attempts to find a job or an opportunity to earn money, Josef Divjak finally ends up at the 'Ostmärkische Versicherung' [Note: before 1938 and after 1945 'Bundesländer-Versicherung', merged into the UNIQA insurance company in 1999] and immediately tries to recruit other opponents of National Socialism, which he succeeds in doing.

Together with his anti-Nazi colleagues, he formed a resistance group within the post office, which joined the resistance group of the Christian labor leader and later founder of the Vienna Austrian Workers' and Employees' Federation (ÖAAB-Wien), Lois Weinberger.

He is not drafted into the Wehrmacht and experiences the liberation of Austria in Vienna in April and May 1945 and the re-establishment of the Republic. He was immediately rehabilitated and worked to rebuild the postal and telegraph administration. In April 1945, he took over the management of the Vienna 101 - Westbahnhof post office, which had been completely destroyed, under bleak conditions and temporarily housed it in the offices of a school building.

At the same time, he founded the 'Post and Telegraph Service' section of the newly founded Austrian Workers' and Employees' Federation (ÖAAB), was elected as its federal section chairman and appointed to the central committee of the postal and telegraph service union. Through his membership of the ÖAAB, he is a member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). He is also involved in the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich.