Rudolf Gelbard

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Rudolf Gelbard (2014)

Rudolf Gelbard (born December 4, 1930 in Vienna ; † October 24, 2018 there ) was an Austrian anti-fascist , survivor of the Holocaust and contemporary witness .

life and work

Rudolf Gelbard was born in Vienna in 1930 to Jewish parents and grew up in Leopoldstadt, Vienna . After the “Anschluss” of Austria in 1938, he was excluded from his school because of his descent, and there were several school changes. He was aware of the persecution of the Jews on November 9, 1938 in the course of the November pogrom . In 1942 he and his parents were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp . 19 members of his family were murdered, and he himself was one of the few children who survived internment in Theresienstadt.

Rudolf Gelbard made up his school education in private lessons, at adult education centers and as an extraordinary listener at the Contemporary History Institute of the University of Vienna . He then worked in his father's company, from 1954 to 1963 as an employee in the Federal Ministry for Social Administration. He then worked as a businessman before he became editor at the courier in 1975 .

After his liberation in 1945, Rudolf Gelbard always resolutely opposed anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi activities: in 1946, with like-minded people from the concentration camp association , he protested against anti-Semitic actions at the University of Vienna . When in 1948 former Ariseurs wanted to found the association “Protection Association of Restitution Affected ”, Gelbard and hundreds of other anti-fascists disrupted the founding meeting. In 1955 they prevented a planned anti-Semitic lecture by Fritz Stüber . Gelbard also witnessed the brawls at the demonstration in which Ernst Kirchweger was killed in 1965 . Later he disrupted and made impossible lectures by the American revisionist David L. Hoggan and the Holocaust denier David Irving in Vienna. Most recently, he and other Holocaust survivors took legal action against the right-wing magazine Die Aula , after the survivors had been described as "mass murderers" and "land plagues". The case went through all instances, and the magazine finally had to publish a revocation.

Politically, Rudolf Gelbard found a home with the Social Democrats (SPÖ). He attended the Academy of Socialist Youth and later the SPÖ party school in Vienna . As a member of the Social Democratic Freedom Fighters , Rudolf Gelbard campaigned for education about the Nazi crimes. In addition to his work as a lecturer in schools, at symposia and in lectures, he was also active as a cultural advisor for the Jewish Community in Vienna. In addition, he was a member of the board of directors of the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance , the Advisory Board of the Austrian-Israeli Society and the Advisory Board of the Coordination Committee for Christian-Jewish Cooperation.

For his services and his educational lectures he was honored by the Republic of Austria with the professional title of Professor and other awards, including the Joseph-Samuel-Bloch-Medal . Since 2008 the Republican Club - New Austria has been awarding the "Rudolf Gelbard Prize for Enlightenment against Fascism and Anti-Semitism". Gelbard himself was the first to receive this award.

In the 2013/14 season he took part in the contemporary witness production The Last Witnesses by Doron Rabinovici and Matthias Hartmann at the Burgtheater in Vienna ; the production referred to the November pogroms in 1938 , was highly valued by the public and the press and was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen 2014 in Dresden , Hamburg and Frankfurt.

Gelbard had been married since 1990 and had a daughter from a previous marriage who died in 1972 at the age of 17.

Rudolf Gelbard died on the night of October 24, 2018, he was buried in a grave of honor at the Vienna Central Cemetery .

Quote

“Survival is a privilege that obliges. I kept asking myself what I can do for those who did not survive. The answer that I have found for myself (and which by no means has to be the answer of every survivor) is: I want to be their mouthpiece, I want to keep the memory of them alive so that the dead can live on in this memory. But we, the survivors, are not only obliged to the dead, but also to future generations: we have to pass on our experiences to them so that they can learn from them. Information is defense. Survivors have to be like seismographs; they have to sense the danger - earlier than others -, recognize its contours and point it out. You do not have the right to make a mistake a second time and to consider what can lead to a catastrophe to be harmless. "

- Simon Wiesenthal : From: Law, not revenge , quoted several times by Rudolf Gelbard

Documentation

literature

Awards

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Gelbard  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holocaust survivor Rudolf Gelbard has died. In: derstandard.at. October 24, 2018, accessed October 24, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Holocaust survivor Rudolf Gelbard-over dead. In: orf.at . October 24, 2018, accessed October 24, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Portrait of Prof. Rudolf Gelbard. Association for Remembrance, 2018, accessed on October 24, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c Peter Temel: Holocaust survivor Rudi Gelbard died at the age of 87. In: kurier.at . October 24, 2018, accessed October 24, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Christa Zöchling : Rudolf Gelbard: The last fighter . In: Profile . No. 19/2018 , May 7, 2018 ( online at profil.at).
  6. ↑ Alexia Weiss: "Marcel Prawy of Antifascism". In: Wina . February 2018, accessed October 27, 2018 .
  7. ↑ a b Werner Faymann honors Rudolf Gelbard , press release by the Federal Chancellery on February 25, 2011.
  8. ↑ Rudolf Gelbard (1930-2018). In: doew.at . October 2018, accessed October 27, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Rudi Gelbard. Austrian-Israeli Society, October 24, 2018, accessed February 24, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Even in churches mourning Shoah survivors Gelbard. In: kathpress.at . October 24, 2018, accessed October 27, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Research platform: Transcriptions and Translations> Rudolf Gelbard. Freie Universität Berlin , 2017, accessed on October 27, 2018 .
  12. ↑ "The man on the balcony" . In: IKG (Ed.): The community . March 2008, p. 21 ( Report on the preview online on the IKG website (PDF; 8.15 MB)).
  13. ↑ Badges of honor for former resistance fighters. In: City Hall correspondence of the City of Vienna. September 21, 2005, accessed October 24, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Speech by the President of the National Council Doris Bures on the occasion of the award of the Victor Adler plaque to Rudolf Gelbard in parliament. February 15, 2016, accessed October 24, 2018 .
  15. ^ Faymann / Bures: Rudolf Gelbard is an anti-fascist role model in Austria. February 15, 2016, accessed October 18, 2018 .
  16. ↑ SOS Mitmensch: Holocaust survivors receive the Ute Bock Prize for moral courage . In: OTS.at . ( ots.at [accessed on February 27, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Gelbard, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Holocaust survivor
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 2018
Place of death Vienna