Konrad Just

Konrad Just , baptized name Josef Just (born March 19, 1902 in Hruschau , Austrian Silesia ; † October 22, 1964 in Gramastetten ) was an Austrian Cistercian , pastor (chaplain and parish vicar) in the community of Gramastetten, Upper Austria as well as a victim of Nazi Germany and for many years Concentration camp inmate.

Live and act

Josef Just was born in Austrian Silesia as the son of a railroad worker. The family later moved to Orlau . The boy went to school in Alt-Oderberg and Teschen .

After the break up of the Habsburg monarchy, the family moved to Walding in Upper Austria , where they found a new home in 1919. Just finished high school in Linz in 1921 and entered Wilhering Abbey as a Cistercian in August of that year , where he was given the religious name “Konrad” and was ordained a priest on June 29, 1925.

On October 16, 1926, the monastery sent him to Gramastetten as a cooperator . Because of his decided rejection of the National Socialist worldview, he was arrested on the day of the German invasion of Austria, March 12, 1938, interrogated in the Ottensheim district court , but released the next day. On March 16, he was relieved of his pastoral care position in Gramastetten.

On June 10, 1938, Father Just was arrested again, taken to the Linz police prison and transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on July 25 of that year . Here he was held in dark custody from October 15 to December 2, 1938 and only received some food every fourth day. According to his own account, he was tempted to eat his own droppings at the time, as he was so tormented by hunger, but then contented himself with gnawing off the soap. On October 19, he received the 25 lashes that were so feared among the prisoners, the administration of which he had to count himself.

From September 27, 1939 to December 6, 1940, Konrad Just was in the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he fell ill with starvation. Here he witnessed the murder of his confreres Otto Neururer and Matthias Spanlang in 1940 , of which the former was beatified in 1996 .

The Cistercian returned to Dachau on December 7, 1940 and managed to escape on April 30, 1945 when the camp was cleared on one of the so-called “death marches” . With the Franciscan Sisters of the St. Joseph Congregation in Percha on Lake Starnberg , he was able to go underground with other confreres. It was here that he wrote his first memories of his imprisonment.

Konrad Just returned to Austria and took over the pastoral care position in Gramastetten again from September 1, 1945, where he now served as parish provisional or parish vicar. Because of his folk and rustic style, he was known in the area around Linz under the nickname " Don Camillo des Mühlviertel" from the 1950s .

Father Just was a great admirer of Mary. He died on October 22nd, 1964 while celebrating Holy Mass on the steps of the high altar of the parish church of Gramastetten. The cause of death was a stroke .

The Wilhering Cistercian Abbey had his detention records published posthumously under the title “My Experiences in the Dachau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps” .

The writer Fritz Habeck set Konrad Just a literary monument in 1965 by choosing it as a model for the fictional Father “Kajetan von Pirkham” in his novel “The Piper” .

literature

Reinhold J. Dessl: Parish Vicar P. Konrad Just (1902–1964): Concentration camp priest and "Don Camillo of the Mühlviertel". In: Upper Austrian homeland sheets . Volume 61, Issue 3/4, Linz 2007, pp. 221–229 ( PDF on land-oberoesterreich.gv.at, PDF on ZOBODAT ).
Österreichischer Bundesverlag: Resistance and persecution in Upper Austria, 1934–1945 , 1982, p. 19, ISBN 3-215-04530-3 ; Scan from the source
Stefan Karner, Karl Duffek: Resistance in Austria, 1938–1945 , 2007, ISBN 3901142533 ; Excerpt from the source
Konrad Just: My experiences in the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps . Ed. Cistercian monastery, Wilhering 2006, DNB 984161473
Justus Just: Out of line. How priests were socially destroyed by National Socialism; Documentation from the notes of my uncle, who was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp for seven years, the fate of the concentration camp priests. BoD, Norderstedt 2006, ISBN 978-3-8334-3758-8 .
Bruno Gattringer: Don Camillo in the Mühlviertel - The Fatalities of the Country Pastor Konrad Just , self-published, Gramastetten [o. J.], ( source: daughter Gabi Ludwig or in the Gielge department store in Gramastetten , detail ).

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Website on Pastor Spanlang who was murdered in Buchenwald, with the related testimony of fellow prisoner Konrad Just ( memento from July 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
↑ On the Franciscan Sisters of the Joseph Congregation, so-called "Ursberger Franziskanerinnen" ( Memento from December 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
↑ On the published memoirs of Konrad Just ( memento from September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

personal data
SURNAME	Just, Konrad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Just, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austrian religious, pastor, concentration camp prisoner and author
DATE OF BIRTH	March 19, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hruschau , Austrian Silesia
DATE OF DEATH	October 22, 1964
Place of death	Gramastetten

[1] Website on Pastor Spanlang who was murdered in Buchenwald, with the related testimony of fellow prisoner Konrad Just ( memento from July 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive )

[2] On the Franciscan Sisters of the Joseph Congregation, so-called "Ursberger Franziskanerinnen" ( Memento from December 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive )

[3] On the published memoirs of Konrad Just ( memento from September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )