Jolande Czako

Jolande Czako was born in Budapest as the married daughter of Anton Czako and Gisela, née Sonnenberg. Her parents were Jewish and later took the name Buchwald, but Jolande Czako kept her name.

Jolande Czako trained as a language teacher and converted to Catholicism on December 27, 1896. She then moved to Vienna and worked as an editor and fashion writer. She found employment at Chic Parisien Bachwitz AG.

On March 12, 1938, Jolande Czako witnessed the demise of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation is adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Race Laws', according to which Jolande Czako is considered a 'full Jew'.

The Chic Parisien Bachwitz AG is immediately 'aryanized' and Jolande Czako is dismissed. Now 60 years old, she is able to retire.

In Vienna, the persecution of Jewish citizens gradually worsens. From September 15, 1941, all Jews over the age of 6 are forced to wear the 'Jewish star'. On February 12, 1942, Jolande Czako fled to Budapest, the city of her birth, where Jews were not persecuted as they were in Germany.

This situation changed when, after the German occupation, the puppet government under Döme Sztójay actively participated in the Holocaust. The deportation of Jewish Hungarians to Auschwitz began on May 15, 1944 and continued until July 9, 1944, when Reichsverweser Miklós-Horthy had the transports stopped and the Jewish population of Budapest was largely spared.

Jolande Czako was held in the Rumbachgasse collection camp (Schubhaus) in Budapest from January 25, 1944. She was released on June 28, 1944, when deportations to concentration camps began to cease.

In Budapest, Jolande Czako witnessed the liberation of Austria in April and May 1945 and the re-establishment of the Republic. She returned to Vienna on September 1, 1945.

Jolande Czako retired due to her age. She became a member of the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich and died unmarried and childless in Vienna at the age of 78.

[Note: Chic Parisien Bachwitz AG was an international fashion publishing house with headquarters in Vienna and secondary offices in Paris, London, New York, Brussels and Berlin. Up to 50 magazines were published here. Wealthy American celebrities of the time used Chic Parisien magazine as a catalog to choose from the latest European fashions. The company's headquarters were located in the Palais des Beaux Arts in Vienna. After the occupation of Austria in 1938, the company was Aryanized and the remaining management was murdered in or on the way to concentration camps.

Among Bachwitz's current and seasonal magazines were The Fashion Designer, Chic Parisien (1898-1939), The Large Mode (1900-1922), The Elegant Woman (1900-1929), The Coming Season (1920-1938), Les Tailleurs Charmants (1939) and Moderne Welt (1918-1939). A number of her publications were printed in several languages (German, French, English and Russian) and distributors of her publications were located in Paris, Vienna, London, Berlin, Brussels, Milan, Lisbon, New York, Prague, Bucharest, Minsk, Madrid, Barcelona, Auckland, Melbourne and Warsaw.]