Austrian States: Burgenland

Catriel Fuchs was born in the Burgenland in 1925, but moved to Vienna with his family when he was a child. In Vienna, he lived for a long period in an orphanage and visited elementary school. After he was excluded from school in 1938, he became a member of a zionist youth organization and with their help was able to flee to Palestine over Yugoslavia. After a period living in Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, Fuchs enlisted in the Royal Navy. He later worked for a large container shipping company, a job that took him as far away as Taiwan. Fuchs now lives in Israel.

Rachel Gross was born in 1915 as Rose Brock and lived with her family in Gols, Burgenland. She attended elementary school there, later a school in Vienna, and then finally a convent school in Neusiedl am See. In April 1938, Gross and her family were forced to leave Austria by SS and SA men who brought them to the Hungarian border and forced them through some woods and over the border. They were able to get a ship to Palestine via Romania. Gross ran a café with her husband in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Alicia Latzer was born in Güssing in Burgenland in 1928. After the ‘Anschluss’ in 1938, she had to leave school and the family moved to Vienna. The family managed to flee via Trieste to Argentina with forged documents in September 1938. Due to their financial situation, Latzer was separated from her parents and sister and had to live in an orphanage for some time. Latzer later undertook several trips to the USA and decided to emigrate there in 1962. Once in the USA, she worked first in the cosmetics industry and later the tourism industry. At the time of her interview, she was living in New York City.

Mordechai Sella was born Viktor Kopfstein in Vienna in 1933. He grew up in Pilgersdorf in Burgenland, where his family ran a shop. After the ‘Anschluss’ in 1938, they had to move to Vienna, where the father was arrested during the November Pogrom and deported to Dachau. In 1940, the family managed to flee on a ship and land illegally in Palestine. Upon arrival, they were sent by the British authorities to Mauritius, where they were interned until the end of the war. In 1945, they emigrated to Palestine, where Sella was initially placed in a children’s home. He later lived in a kibbutz. At the time of his interview, he was living in Jerusalem.