Karl (Karol) Fuchs

Photo by Karl Fuchs — Karl Fuchs
Image: WStLA

Personalia

Born:

June 11, 1911, Lviv

Died:

August 5, 1982, Vienna

Profession:

Jeweler

KZ Number:

84744

Memberships

Austrian People's Party, ÖVP Comradeship of the politically persecuted and confessors for Austria

Curriculum Vitae

Karol Fuchs was born into a Jewish family in Lviv in Galicia [today: Lviv in Ukraine]. Nothing has been preserved about his parents or his childhood and youth. He later moved to Krakow and probably trained as a jeweler.

On September 1, 1939, the German Reich invaded Poland, triggering the outbreak of the Second World War. On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union invades eastern Poland in accordance with the secret additional protocol to the German-Soviet non-aggression pact of August 1939. On October 6, 1939, Poland capitulates to the German-Soviet superiority. From November 1939, all Jewish residents of Krakow from the age of twelve must wear the yellow 'Jewish Star', 53,828 of which are sold by the Krakow Jewish Council.

On March 3, 1941, the head of the administrative district of Krakow, SS Gruppenführer Otto Wächter, orders the establishment of a 'Jewish housing estate' in Podgórze, a district in the southern part of the city. By March 20, 1941, all Jewish residents of Krakow must have moved to the Krakow ghetto. The area of 600 by 400 meters is sealed off with a wall and barbed wire. The streets leading into the ghetto were strictly guarded by the SS. Every citizen of Krakow is strictly forbidden to enter the ghetto. As this ghetto separates several residential districts in the center of the city, the inhabitants of Krakow can use a streetcar to get to the other side of the ghetto. The streetcar carriages are sealed during the journey through the ghetto; the windows are taped shut.

15,000 people are crammed into the district, which previously had 3,000 inhabitants. The Jewish lawyer Artur Rosenzweig is forced to take over the chairmanship of the Jewish Council. Several factories are set up in the ghetto; several hundred Jews are also forced to work outside the ghetto.

Karol Fuchs probably worked in the ghetto as a plumber. From March 1942, the ghetto was evacuated and the inmates deported to concentration camps. Karol Fuchs was deported to the Płaszów concentration camp on August 6, 1942. As the Red Army approached, he was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp on August 10, 1944, from where he was transferred to the neighboring Gusen II concentration camp

Prisoner personnel card of the Mauthausen concentration camp by Karl Fuchs

After the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic, Karol Fuchs moves to Vienna via Linz, joins the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich, changes his first name from 'Karol' to 'Karl' and opens a jewellery store. He took Austrian citizenship, married and became the father of a daughter in 1951.

Karl Fuchs died in Vienna at the age of 71 and was laid to rest in the Jewish Cemetery at Vienna's Central Cemetery.

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