Elsa Koditschek

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Elsa Koditschek b. Schleifer ( February 29, 1884 in Steyr - 1961 in Switzerland) was an Austrian survivor of the Shoah who was able to hide in Vienna during the Nazi regime . She was the owner of Schiele's Twilight City from 1913, presumably the only painting she acquired.

Life

Elsa Schleifer was an only child. Little is known about her life. Her parents were Rafael Schleifer and Therese geb. Goose. She married Siegfried Koditschek, a banker, employed by the highly respected kk privileged Austrian Credit Institution for Trade and Industry . Her father died in Vienna in 1911.

Villa in the Erzbischofgasse

In the same year, her husband had a three-story villa built for the family on Erzbischofgasse in Hietzing . The architect was Theodor Schreier (1873–1943). The couple had two children: Paul, geb. 1911, and Hedy, b. 1913. In August 1925, the husband and father suddenly died at the age of only 48 as a result of a stroke. It can be seen from the party that Siegfried Koditschek was last employed as chief accountant deputy at Credit-Anstalt. With the help of her mother, the widow raised and looked after the two children and enabled them to study. We know that Elsa Koditschek was interested in art. In autumn 1928 she visited the memorial exhibition on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Egon Schiele's death , organized by the Hagenbund and the Neue Galerie . She was enthusiastic about the painting Twilight City , bought it and had it hung in the dining room of her villa, above the piano. It hung there until at least 1939.

Dawning City by Egon Schiele

After the annexation of Austria by Hitler's Germany in March 1938, the children fled Austria. Paul, now a lawyer, went to the USA, Hedy to Switzerland. Her son married Leah geb. Kuselewitz (1917–1984), they had two children. Elsa Koditschek stayed in Vienna because she did not want to expose her 84-year-old mother to the exertions of an escape. The family's fortune had long been exhausted, and rooms had to be rented out for the meager livelihood. She also gave shelter to friends. One of her tenants was Sylvia Kosminski, soon to be called "Aunt Sylvia", who had moved into the Bel étage. In August 1940 Elsa Koditschek received the official order to vacate her apartment in the basement of the villa within 14 days. As a result, her mother had to move to an old people's home run by the Israelite religious community . Elsa Koditschek herself remained a cabinet that she used as a subtenant of her previous tenant Kosminski. SS-Scharführer Herbert Gerbing and his family, a long-time NSDAP member and at that time an employee of Adolf Eichmann's Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna, moved into the long-standing family home of the Koditscheks . Her mother died ten days after moving to the home, and whenever SS-Scharführer Gerbing had a concern about the villa, she was summoned to the Palais Rothschild, to the Gerbings office.

When she received an invitation to “move” to Litzmannstadt in October 1941 , she asked the SS man for a delay. He described the living conditions in the local ghetto to her "in the rosiest of tones" and rejected the application. Then, on the advice of friends, she went underground. For the time being she found shelter with a couple who were friends. She was not allowed to approach the windows. When visitors came, she had to hide between a box and a clothes chest. If the couple was out in the evening, they were not allowed to turn on the lights. For a year and a half she could hardly leave this apartment, a few walks were only possible in the early morning hours.

Despite all precautionary measures, she was betrayed. Only with courage and a bit of luck was she able to escape arrest on June 25, 1943 during a house search. The friend who had given her shelter was arrested and deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . She was able to survive the Nazi regime.

Elsa Koditschek was also able to survive. She secretly returned to the villa on Erzbischofgasse, hosted by Aunt Sylvia , who had meanwhile sold the Schiele, the son's microscope and other valuables. To whom, no one knew. The Gestapo is looking for Elsa Koditschek, but it never occurred to them that she could hide in her own house. She spent the whole of 1944 as the unpaid household helper of her former tenant, hiding in what used to be her own house, living just one floor above an SS man who a. sought the life of the Viennese Jews as part of the belittling persecution called the Final Solution . Herbert Gerbing himself was rarely in Vienna at the time, as he was responsible for the deportations of Jews from Slovakia, Greece and France. When he was in Vienna, however, Frau Koditschek could see him hiding behind the curtains with his family in the garden. She also had to watch as forced laborers with the Jewish star delivered furniture or tended the garden. The danger on the floor below her and in the garden was reduced when Ms. Gerbing and the children fled the city on Easter Monday 1944.

But now the Jewish woman living in hiding had to fear the air raids on Vienna , which from March 1944 to March 1945 cost a total of nine thousand residents of Vienna - despite air raid shelters - their lives. She was not allowed to flee to any bunker because neighbors would have recognized her as a Jew there. Elsa Koditschek survived the Nazi regime. In the post-war period, which was full of privation, she left the devastated Vienna and moved to live with her daughter in Switzerland. She never saw her Schiele picture again. She died in 1961. Her rescuer and friend, whom the children called “Aunt”, survived.

Elsa Koditschek was buried on June 5, 1961 in the urn grove of the Simmering fire hall . The urn is there next to that of her husband in Department 1, Ring 2, Group 6, Number 12. The right to use the grave is for the duration of the cemetery.

City of dawn

Egon Schiele painted the Twilight City in 1913, occasionally also called The Small City II . It was legally and in good faith auctioned in September 1950 at the Dorotheum in Vienna by the well-known Schiele collector Viktor Fogarassy (1897–1977) and was finally in the possession of his heirs. As part of a private restitution, the painting will be auctioned on November 12, 2018 at Sotheby’s in New York. An agreement provides for the foreseeable high proceeds to be divided between the heirs after Elsa Koditschek and Viktor Fogarassy.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Olga Kronsteiner : Why the auction of this painting by Egon Schiele is a sensation , Der Standard (Vienna), October 5, 2018
  2. ^ Yad Vashem : Gerbing Herbert, Staff member of Central Office for Jewish Emigration, organzied deportations of Jews from Austria, Germany, Slovkia, Greece and France , accessed on October 6, 2018
  3. ↑ Jews during the Nazi regime into hiding to escape from deportation were as submarine called. This explains the terms in this context, which are not to be understood as trivializing.
  4. ^ Friedhöfe Wien : Elsa Koditschek's search for the deceased , accessed on November 12, 2018
  5. ↑ Since there is a second picture of the same size from the same year, there is a risk of confusion. The other picture is described by the Leopold Museum as follows: “Die kleine Stadt” II, also “Kleine Stadt” III, oil on canvas (sewn from two parts), 1913 89.9 x 90 cm, see description of provenance , accessed on 6. October 2018
personal data
SURNAME Koditschek, Elsa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schleifer, Elsa (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian survivor of the Holocaust, owner of an important Schiele painting
DATE OF BIRTH February 29, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Steyr
DATE OF DEATH 1961
Place of death Switzerland