Josef Sieder

Josef Sieder (born April 12, 1918 in Vienna , † after January 20, 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp ) was an Austrian resistance fighter against National Socialism and a Spanish fighter.

Life

Josef Sieder, whose Jewish parents came from today's Ukraine , grew up with his brother Adolf, who was born in 1913, in the Viennese district of Neubau . Here, as in the neighboring Ottakring district , he was a student at the local grammar school .

Sieder became involved in the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) at an early age and was therefore a member of the Communist Youth Association of Austria (KJVÖ) from 1934 . When he also joined the anti-fascist middle school student union in Austria in 1935, which had been banned during the Austrian Civil War , Sieder was arrested and tried before a juvenile court in 1936. After a few months in police custody, Sieder was released in 1937. Shortly before he was expelled from Austria, he was able to take his Matura in 1937 .

In 1937 Sieder began a journey across Europe . He came to Paris via a short stopover in Prague . Here he joined the International Brigades and fought from 1938 as a soldier in the Thälmann Battalion in the Spanish Civil War . It is not certain whether Josef Sieder and his brother Adolf, who also fought in the brigades , ever saw each other there, since Adolf Sieder belonged to another unit, the 86th Brigade, as an interpreter. He fell in 1937 on the frontline near the Spanish city of Cordoba . After the defeat of the Republican parliamentary group and the victory of Francisco Franco , Josef Sieder fled to the Netherlands via Belgium .

When the Benelux countries and France were annexed by the National Socialists , Sieder began to get involved in the French Resistance from 1941 . As a member of the anti-fascist Travail allemand , he was responsible for building up the resistance in the north-eastern departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais . Sieder resisted the Nazi regime in this way for almost three years.

In September 1944, Sieder was arrested by the Secret State Police in Drancy . In the following four months Sieder was deported to some concentration camps. First he was brought to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland and from there in November 1944 to the Echterdingen concentration camp in Baden-Württemberg , where a satellite camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp was located. At the beginning of January 1945 Sieder was deported to Bergen-Belsen.

The date of his death is still not certain with certainty. However, the earliest possible time of death is assumed to be January 20, 1945, the day the transport arrived in Bergen-Belsen.

Web links

• E. Lebensaft - Ch. Mentschl:  Sieder, Josef. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 12, Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2001–2005, ISBN 3-7001-3580-7 , p. 232.