Josef Schleich

Josef Schleich (* 1902 in Graz ; † February 7, 1949 ) was an Austrian who helped thousands of Jews to flee to Zagreb across the Styrian-Slovenian border during the Nazi era from 1938 to 1941 .

Life

Josef Schleich had attended a business school. He operated u. a. a poultry farm. He had seven children and was considered a bon vivant . He improved his income by smuggling across the nearby Yugoslav border. Saccharine and flint were in great demand. Up to 1938 Josef Schleich was punished 16 times for smuggling.

After the connection of Austria to the German Reich Schleich began to transform his business. Many Jews wanted to flee, but were not accepted by the destination countries because the National Socialists had taken all their assets away from them in the form of taxes ( Reich flight tax ). Josef Schleich recognized the "gap in the market" and began to give the Jews agricultural lessons, which increased their chances of being accepted by other countries. The trainees received a certificate and were able to use it to travel abroad. But when too many certificates were issued, Schleich lost credibility and thus also lost customers and income.

One more time he began to change his business. He became an escape helper . In cooperation with the Graz Jewish community, the Vienna Palestine Office and under the conditions of the Gestapo and the German border police, he helped Jews across the border into Yugoslavia and thus saved their lives with his “border experiences”. Schleich charged around 670 Reichsmarks per person for transport across the border . Officially, he was a travel guide. His business, which he called "Schleich Travel Agency", flourished. Before the start of the Balkan campaign , his activities were tolerated by the Nazi authorities. When Schleich and his colleagues were arrested on March 12, 1941, he had saved thousands of Jews. He served a ten-month prison sentence for foreign currency offenses and was subsequently drafted into the Wehrmacht . His business was shattered.

In 1945 he returned to Graz. But now he was facing a lawsuit because he had been reported by some Jews who had tried to get across the border with Schleich but failed. They accused him of having enriched the property of the Jews. He was arrested. On December 15, 1948, the case was dropped for lack of evidence.

Schleich lived in Graz in the "Carolinenhaus" Glockenspielplatz 7. On February 7, 1949 he died of cirrhosis of the liver .

Josef Schleich's activity remained controversial in Austria: he had also earned money with it and had broken laws; on the other hand, he saved the lives of thousands of Jews. In 2002, the Braunau Contemporary History Days took place under the title "Few Righteous ?" controversially concerned with Josef Schleich.

In 1999 his daughter Hannelore Fröhlich published parts of his biography for the first time; 2007 the book Judenretter - Adventurer - Lebemann: Mein Vater Josef Schleich .

Documentation

• Josef Schleich's travel agency , film by Elisabeth Stratka and Gerald Navara, 45 min., 2011

literature

• Walter Brunner : Josef Schleich. “Jewish smuggler” from Graz 1938–1941. A documentation. (= Research on the historical regional studies of Styria. 78). Lit-Verlag, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-643-50785-3 .
• Hannelore Fröhlich: Searching for traces . With an afterword by Walter Brunner. Steirische Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1999, ISBN 3-85489-023-0 .
• Hannelore Fröhlich: savior of Jews - adventurer - bon vivant: Josef Schleich. Searching for traces of a daughter . LIT Verlag Dr. W. Hopf, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-0923-2 .
• Robert Engele: Back then in Graz. A city tells its stories. Styria, Graz 2011, ISBN 978-3-7012-0078-8 .

Web links

• Josef Schleich's travel agency. Media booklet for the video cassette. 2002. (bildung.bmbwf.gv.at , PDF; 332 kB)]
• Gerald Navara, Elisabeth Stratka: November pogroms: The unbelievable story of Josef Schleich. (Feature), Ö1, ORF.at, November 10, 2018. (oe1.orf.at , accessed November 10, 2018)