Victor Kugler

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Victor Kugler (born June 5 or June 6, 1900 in Hohenelbe , Austria-Hungary , † December 16, 1981 in Toronto ) was an Austrian entrepreneur and one of the people who helped the Jewish families of Anne Frank and van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer to hide from persecution during the German Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. In Anne Frank's posthumously published diary he was called "Mr. Kraler". In 1973 he received the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations .

Life

Victor Kugler joined the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I after completing training. He was released wounded in 1918, moved to Germany and worked there as an electrician.

In 1920 Victor Kugler moved to Utrecht to sell pectin as a sales representative for the Pomosin company in Frankfurt am Main . For several years he had worked for a Utrecht company that had acquired the license to sell pectin to jam factories. This company hired him to prepare an Opekta branch in Amsterdam . When it turned out that he did not succeed (source: Miep Gies , February 19, 1985), Otto Heinrich Frank took on this task. Victor Kugler and Otto Frank met through the pectin trade. Viktor Kugler became one of the first employees in Otto Frank's newly established Amsterdam Opekta trade in 1933 and later became his right-hand man. When Otto Frank expanded his business to include a spice mix company (Pectacon), Victor Kugler played a key role.

In May 1938 he obtained citizenship of the Netherlands . In 1940 this, and the fact that he was not of Jewish faith, enabled him to prevent the expropriation of Pectacon. He dissolved Pectacon and took over the management of the newly founded "Gies & Co".

Victor Kugler and his wife Laura Maria Buntenbach-Kugler (* May 10, 1895 - December 6, 1952) lived during the Second World War (1939–1945) and the occupation of the Netherlands by German troops in Hilversum , about 25 kilometers from Amsterdam away.

From July 1942 to August 1944 he helped his colleagues Miep Gies , Johannes Kleiman and Bep Voskuijl to hide eight people in an officially sealed outbuilding of the company's headquarters in Amsterdam from persecution by supporters of National Socialism . Anne Frank was among them . On August 4, 1944, he was betrayed to the Gestapo by an unknown informant .

Victor Kugler was interrogated at the Gestapo headquarters in the Euterpestraat in Amsterdam, then on the same day transported to a prison for Jews and “political prisoners” waiting to be deported. On September 7th, he was placed in a cell with people sentenced to death in Weteringschans Prison. Four days later, on September 11, he was transferred to the Amersfoort transit camp , where he was scheduled for transport to Germany. On September 17th, the Amersfoort train station was destroyed by a bomb attack. On September 26th, Kugler and about 1,100 other men were brought to Zwolle and forced to dig anti- tank trenches .

Kugler was again transferred from December 30, 1944 to March 28, 1945 by the SA to Wageningen for forced labor . When around 600 prisoners marched from Wageningen through Renkum , Heelsum , Oosterbeek , Arnheim , Westervoort and Zevenaar with the intention of going on to Germany the following day, an air raid took place, and Kugler used the confusion to escape. He was hidden by a farmer for a few days, borrowed a bicycle and made his way back to Hilversum. He reached the city in April 1945. There he hid until the liberation of the Netherlands on May 5, 1945 by Anglo-American troops.

After the end of the Second World War, the companies Opekta and Gies & Co continued to exist in Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam. Legal measures authorized the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry to re-register the company, which was liquidated by German regulations, in the event of claims from the original owners. Frank, Kleiman and Kugler were therefore able to take possession of the Pectacon again; Gies & Co also remained. Laura Kugler died on December 6, 1952. Victor Kugler married Lucie (Loes) van Langen three years later and moved to Canada , where his brother, sister and mother were already living.

In 1973 he received a medal and the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations from the Yad Vashem Memorial in Israel . In 1977 the Canadian Anti-Defamation League awarded him a $ 10,000 prize in recognition of his support in hiding the Frank and van Pels Jewish families during World War II.

literature

  • Rick Kardonne: Victor Kugler: The Man Who Hid Anne Frank , Gefen Publishing House 2008.
  • The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Edition , Anne Frank, edited by David Barnouw and Gerrold van der Stroom, translated by Arnold J. Pomerans, compiled by HJJ Hardy, second edition, Doubleday 2003.
  • Anne Frank: The Untold Story. The hidden truth about Elli Vossen, the youngest helper of the Secret Annex , Jeroen De Bruyn and Joop van Wijk, Bep Voskuijl Producties 2018.
  • Anne Frank Remembered , Miep Gies, Alison Leslie Gold, Simon and Schuster 1988.
  • Roses from the earth: the biography of Anne Frank , Carol Ann Lee, Penguin 1999.
  • Anne Frank: The Biography , Melissa Müller, foreword by Miep Gies, Bloomsbury 1999.
  • In the footsteps of Anne Frank , Ernst Schnabel, Pan 1988.
  • The Hidden Life of Otto Frank , Carol Ann Lee, Penguin 2002.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The life and work of Victor Kugler
  2. ↑ a b c The data are based on correspondence with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kugler, Victor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mr. Kraler (in Anne Frank's diary)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch-Canadian helper Anne Franks and other victims of persecution by the National Socialists
DATE OF BIRTH June 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Vrchlabí
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1981
Place of death Toronto