Otto Zucker

Otto Zucker (born October 3, 1892 in Prague ; † September 29, 1944 in Auschwitz ) was a Czech architect, engineer, Zionist , politician and temporarily deputy Jewish elder in the Theresienstadt ghetto , who was a victim of the Holocaust .

Life

Zucker took part in the First World War as a member of the Joint Army and received several awards. By profession he was an architect and civil engineer who lived in 1925/26 a. a. participated in the construction of the Ullsteinhaus . He was a Zionist and deputy chairman of the Jewish Party in Czechoslovakia. At the Palestine Office in Prague he headed the economic department under its director Jakob Edelstein . Before he was head of the Jewish Community of Brno in the summer of 1941, he became head of the Jewish Community of Prague .

On December 4, 1941, Edelstein und Zucker and 21 other members of a staff arrived in the Theresienstadt ghetto to prepare for the "self-government" there. In Theresienstadt he was first deputy to the Jewish elder Edelstein and after a temporary interruption held this position again. In addition to other functions, he temporarily headed the central secretariat and, from March 1943, the leisure department. Sugar was considered versatile and very intelligent.

Residential and commercial building in Prague, Petrské nám.

At the end of September 1944, a transport of inmates was put together in Theresienstadt to allegedly set up a labor camp, which was set up by Zucker and the head of the economic department, Karl Schliesser. The inmates did not know that the train had its destination Auschwitz. Zucker was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau immediately after arriving at Auschwitz. His wife, who a few days later was put on a transport to Auschwitz, was also murdered there.

buildings

1935: Tenement house in Prague-Holešovice, Františka Křížka 525/18
1938–1941: residential and commercial building in Prague-New Town, Petrské náměstí 1186/1

literature

Hans Günther Adler : Theresienstadt. The Face of a Compulsory Community 1941-1945 Afterword Jeremy Adler. Wallstein, Göttingen 2005 ISBN 3-89244-694-6 (reprint of the 2nd verb. Edition Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1960. 1st edition ibid. 1955)
Wolfgang Benz : Theresienstadt: A story of deception and destruction , CH Beck., Munich, 2013. Table of contents . 281 pages. ISBN 978-3-406-64549-5 .
Lukeš, Zdeněk: Settling the debt: German-speaking architects in Prague 1900–1938 (Splátka dluhu: Praha a její německy hovořící architekti 1900–1938). Praha: Fraktály Publishers, 2002, 217 pp. ISBN 80-86627-04-7 . Section Otto Zucker, pp. 214–215

Web links

Commons : Otto Zucker - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Sugar, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Czechoslovak architect, civil engineer, Zionist and deputy Jewish elder of the Theresienstadt ghetto
DATE OF BIRTH	October 3, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH	Prague
DATE OF DEATH	September 29, 1944
Place of death	Auschwitz concentration camp