Richard Friedmann

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Richard Friedmann (born June 24, 1906 in Vienna ; † May 22, 1944 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was an Austrian Zionist and a leading functionary of the Jewish community in Prague .

Live and act

Friedmann graduated from the commercial school in Vienna and from 1929 worked as a civil servant in the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Vienna . In 1939 he was transferred to the Jewish Community in Prague, where he was employed as a leading functionary. Friedmann was married to Cecilie ("Cilly") Friedmann (1912–1965), nee Spinner. The marriage remained childless. Cecilie survived, went back to work as a doctor, and remarried as Michalová.

Friedmann and about 1,000 other Jewish men were deported from Ostrava to Nisko on October 18, 1939, as part of the so-called Nisko and Lublin Plan, together with his superior Jakob Edelstein . After this plan failed, Friedmann returned to Prague in November 1939. There he continued to work for the community with a focus on social welfare, health services and schools. Together with Jakob Edelstein, he had to visit the Amsterdam Jewish Council in March 1941 to advise the chairmen of the Jewish Council there, Abraham Asscher and David Cohen, regarding the establishment of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Amsterdam . He managed to supply the Theresienstadt ghetto with urgently needed medication at considerable risk to himself. Friedmann, who carelessly phoned the Theresienstadt ghetto from his place of work and his apartment, was summoned by Hans Günther for this in December 1942 and, after denying the allegations, forced 140 squats.

On January 28, 1943, Friedmann and Franz Kahn were arrested at work and sent to the ghetto himself, his wife the following day. As a so-called celebrity, he renounced all privileges except for a single room, which he used for conspiratorial gatherings. Friedmann was a vehement opponent of cooperation with the SS and could not understand the involvement of the council of elders in putting together the deportation transports. Thanks to the intervention of the Jewish elder Paul Eppstein , Friedmann finally worked in the work center after working in agriculture.

In May 1944, Friedmann was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and shot there on May 22, 1944 while attempting to escape by the SS.

literature

  • Hans G. Adler: Theresienstadt. The face of a coercive community 1941–1945 ; Epilogue Jeremy Adler; Wallstein, Göttingen 2005 ISBN 3-89244-694-6 (reprint of the 2nd verb. Edition Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1960. 1st edition ibid. 1955)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In memoriam associate professor Dr. Cecilie Michalová (1914-1965) ; Act Nerv Super (Praha), 1966 February 8 (1) pp. 127-8.
personal data
SURNAME Friedmann, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian employee of the Jewish religious communities in Vienna and Prague
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1944
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp