Lilli AUCHMAN, widowed name FISCH, née BLUMENSTOCK

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Für unsere deutschsprachigen Leser*innen: Die Biografie ist unterhalb der englischen Version auch auf deutsch verfügbar.

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Photo on the front of a postcard, dated March 7, 1928, from Anne-Marie Auchman’s collection.

Born on August 13, 1909 in Vienna, Austria, died on August 28, 2001 in Paris, France.

Biography researched, documented and written by Olivier Szlos and Anne-Marie Auchman, Lilli’s daughter, with the help of Laurence Klejman for proofreading.

Lilli Fisch was born on August 13, 1909 in Vienna, Austria. She arrived in France together with her husband in the spring of 1937 and lived there for a while with her family. Arrested for acts of resistance and deported as a Jew along with her mother and sisters, she left Drancy on Convoy 77. She survived, and returned home to France where she remarried and started a family. She died in Paris on August 28, 2001.

Vienna

Russia’s war against Japan was raging and it was during these months, between 1904 and 1905, that Schlome Zelmann Blumenstock (born in 1876) and Malka Reisel Munzenmacher (born in 1880), originally from the city of Lublin, which had been under occupation by the Russian Empire since 1795, together with their three young children, Anna, Mathias and Suzanne, left their parents’ land forever for Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire[1].

This family of Jewish Polish migrants settled in the Brigittenau neighborhood, in the 20th district of Vienna, a growing city. The population of the 20th was increasing rapidly as a result of the arrival of thousands of immigrants such as the Blumenstocks. Soon after their arrival, Fanny and Elsa were born. Lilli, the youngest of the Blumenstock family, was born at 13, rue Ossmargasse on August 13, 1909[2].

From a population of 71,445 in 1900, the district had 101,326 inhabitants by the end of the decade [3]. The religious center of Vienna’s 20th district was the synagogue, at 11 Kluckygasse. Designed by the architect Jakob Gartner (1861-1921), the Brigittenauer Temple, which seated 560 men and women, was built between 1899-1900. It was financed by the Synagogue Association, which was founded in 1875. On September 20, 1900, the synagogue was inaugurated[4].

Although we do not have any details about Lilli’s childhood, we can imagine her life as a schoolgirl in a middle-class family, with her father running a business. We know from her 1949 identity card that at that time she was just under 5 feet tall (1.52 m), with brown eyes and dark chestnut hair.

Beginning in 1920, and for the next fourteen years, Schlome and his wife Malka Reizel had the pleasure of witnessing their daughters’ marriages at the Brigittenauer Temple: Anna married Richard M. Ude in 1920; Suzanne chose Albert Kolb in 1928; Elsa married Beno God in 1932 and Fanny married Schulim Joseph Fisch in 1933. And then, at the age of twenty-five, on March 4, 1934, Lilli married Mojsesz Fisch. Their witnesses were Schulim Fisch, Mojsesz’ brother, and Albert Kolb. Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein and Hazan Shmuel Landerer performed the marriage ceremony[5]. Lilli’s husband, a merchant [handelsangestellter], was born on June 12, 1910 in Kopyczynce, Tarnopol, in Austrian Galicia, but this having been Polish territory since 1921, Lilli, now married, and Mojsesz were considered Polish citizens[6].

The Viennese author and journalist, Hugo Bettauer, wrote a lot about anti-Semitism and, in 1922, he published a satirical, prophetic novel, Die Stadt ohne Juden, or The City without Jews. In it, he described the deportation of Jews from Vienna in railway wagons[7], and 250,000 copies were sold. Tragically, Bettauer was assassinated in 1925, one year after the release of the feature film based on his book. Political tensions in Vienna were running high.

On January 30, 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and the Weimar Republic made way for the Third Reich of Nazi Germany. In March 1934, brutal police crackdowns against the Viennese Socialists began to take place. Then, in July of that summer, the Austrian Nazis attempt a coup d’état. The political reality of Vienna after the fall of the Habsburg Monarchy in the 1910s can be summed up as a battle, between the anti-Semitism of the nationalist and Christian parties and the Social Democratic and Jewish parties, for the hearts of the Viennese people. Lily and Mojsesz were active members of the Socialist Party.

Lilli’s father, Schlome Blumenstock, died on April 1, 1936 in his apartment in Brigittenau in Vienna. He was buried on April 3 in the Zentralfriedhof cemetery number IV. His grave is still there today[8].

Paris

France, the land of hope and of the Declaration of Human Rights, was at that time, more than ever, a destination of choice for Jews who were leaving their countries in search of a better life. Léon Blum became Prime Minister on June 4, 1936 and led a coalition of several left-wing parties. Known as the Front Populaire, or Popular Front, this government, in a little over a year, enacted laws that benefited workers, giving them 15 days of paid holidays and a shorter working week of forty hours. Blum introduced the concepts of vacations and free time. The policy of the Popular Front was in sharp contrast with events elsewhere when, in July 1936, Spain fell into the Civil War, and Hitler, who wanted Austria, signed an agreement guaranteeing its independence. On October 22, 1936, the International Brigades were officially formed to fight alongside the Spanish Republicans against Franco’s military coup d’état. Communists and internationalists from all over the world joined forces to stand in his way.

Mojsesz Fisch arrived in France on March 27, 1937, passing through customs at the border post at Les Ponts du Rhin, in Alsace. He held a Polish passport obtained in Vienna in 1935, with a visa valid until 13 May 1937. Lilli joined her husband in France on May 12, 1937, crossing the border at Saint Louis, also in Alsace, with a Polish passport and a tourist visa, issued at the French Consulate in Vienna, valid until July 8, 1937. Time was therefore short for Mojsesz and Lilli to establish a legal presence in France. At the end of May, the 1937 International Exhibition opened its doors in Paris and Lilli quickly found a job there for the duration of the exhibition, which ran until the end of November. Suzanne and Albert Kolb also worked at the Exhibition. On June 10, 1937, Lilli obtained her identity card, which also served as a residence permit. She and her husband lived at 3 bis passage Lauzin, in the same district. They continued with the legalization process with the help of the French League for the Defense of Human and Citizen’s Rights, having introduced themselves as political refugees, saying that this was the reason that they had left Austria. On August 15, two days after her 28th birthday, Lilli and Mojsesz moved to 33, rue Rébeval, in the Belleville district. Like Brigittenau in Vienna, Belleville had become home for many Jewish immigrants since the turn of the century[9].

On November 8, 1937, Mojsesz was entered in the Register of Commerce in the Seine department as a women’s clothing manufacturer and thus became legally entitled to trade[10]. The Fisches were now well on their way to becoming permanent residents in Paris. They were assisted by Auguste Touchard, a member of parliament for the 1st constituency of the 19th district, who wrote to the Minister of the Interior to help Mojsesz obtain his identity card. On December 10, 1937, Marx Dormoy, Minister of the Interior in Camille Chautemps’ government, replied to say that he had approved the request.

Touchard was also a member and activist in the Communist Party and, since the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, he had undertaken several assignments in Spain in support of the Republicans[11]. It is therefore highly likely that Mojsesz was influenced by this militant politician and he volunteered to fight with the XI International Brigade. He became a member of the Edgar-Andre Battalion, previously the Austro-German Battalion, and left for Spain on January 29, 1938. The future of the Fisch couple came to a tragic end on April 1, 1938, when Mojsesz died in combat in the Batea area, in the province of Tarragona, in Catalonia[12].

The Anschluss and the war

On March 12, 1938, Nazi Germany invaded Austria, met with no resistance and annexed Austria, which ceased to exist as a political state. This was known as the Anschluss, (in English the Annexation of Austria), and the anti-Jewish laws that had been enacted in Nuremberg in 1935 also became law in Austria. For Austrian Jews, this brought about overt repression, humiliation and suffering.

From November 9 to 10, 1938, the Nazis unleashed their rage against the Jews during the Kristallnacht pogrom (sometimes known in English as the Night of Broken Glass). At 7 p.m., the Brigittenau Temple was attacked and looted. On Heydrich’s orders, members of the Assault Section and Hitler Youth looted all of the silver religious objects and ripped up the fabrics. The synagogue’s archives were saved, to be sent to the intelligence service in Berlin. The Torah Ark was set on fire and the entire synagogue collapsed beneath the flames. Of all the synagogues in Vienna, only one was spared. Hundreds of people were killed and wounded and many women raped. 6,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Dachau. Vienna’s synagogues would never be rebuilt[13].

In France, the Daladier government came to power two days after the Anschluss. Its political policy was to promote the employment of French people. The Popular Front laws such as the 40-hour week and the rest day on Saturdays were abolished. New laws to restrict foreigners’ rights were passed on May 2 and November 12. Internment camps were built in France, such as that at Gurs, where refugees from the Spanish Civil War were imprisoned. Life for foreigners applying to live in France became increasingly uncertain and more complicated, particularly for Jews fleeing Eastern and Central Europe, but this did not deter them from coming, even as preparations for war were intensifying[14].

Lilli was sentenced to one month in prison on March 10, 1938, for having stayed in France after the expiry of the validity of her residence visa. She was then refused a residence permit and was ordered to leave the country. However, the French League for the Defense of Human and Citizen’s Rights took on the task of pleading her case with the government[15] and, as a result, she was finally granted permission to stay.

A little more than two months after Mojsesz’s death, Lilli’s sister, Anna Ude, recently widowed, arrived in France on June 13, 1938, with a German passport issued in Vienna with a visa valid until July 8, 1938. She moved in with Lilli at 33, rue Rébeval. Their brother Mathias had been arrested in Vienna on account of his being Jewish on June 24, 1938 and was still imprisoned in the concentration camps at Dachau, Buchenwald and Mauthausen. He was released on May 11, 1939 and joined Lilli in Paris on June 14, 1939. Lilli’s sister Suzanne and her husband Albert Kolb left Vienna and returned to France on July 9, 1938. They lived in Chelles, in the Seine et Marne department. The matriarch of the family, Malka Reisel, Schlome’s widow, arrived in France on 7 August 1938 and joined her daughters on rue Rébeval. Elsa and her husband Beno God, with their daughter Pnina, also left Vienna, but instead of heading for France, they left for Palestine where they arrived on August 15, 1938 and joined Fanny and Joseph Fisch. The Blumenstocks were no longer Viennese[16].

It is clear that while earning her living as a seamstress in the women’s ready-to-wear clothing trade, having taken over her husband’s business registration number, Lilli was in close contact with Austrian refugee circles in Paris. Such as, probably, one of Mojzesz’s war comrades, Josef Stadlbauer, who was a prisoner in the Gurs concentration camp. He wrote a letter dated 14 July 1939 to the Minister of the Interior Albert Sarrault, pleading for his release so that he could leave for Tangier. He gave his Parisian address as that of Lilli Fisch at 33, rue Rébeval[17].

On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany attacked and invaded Poland, and France declared war on September 3, 1939. On September 18, the Germans entered Lublin, Poland. Mathias volunteered to join the Compagnie de Travailleurs Etrangers (C.T.E.), or Company of Foreign Workers. From May 1940 onwards, millions of people attempted to flee the invaders, and there was a mass exodus. Suzanne and Albert Kolb left for Montauban and Anna and Malka Reisel for the Sarthe department. Lili remained in Paris. On 14 June 1940, the German army entered Paris and the occupation began. On 18 June, from London, General De Gaulle launched his appeal to ask people to continue to resist.

The Resistance

In December 1941, Lilli came into contact with the Austrian National Front, an organization for anti-German resistance in Paris. She became an agent in the group and her nom de guerre was Claude Berger. She specialized in the distribution of leaflets written in German. The aim was to persuade the soldiers to join the resistance and fight against the Nazi regime. The best places to meet these soldiers were in front of hospitals and, of course, German barracks. She placed these leaflets directly into the hands of the soldiers on Boulevard Saint-Michel. Lilli spoke to them in German, face to face, in cafés or in the street and sometimes even gave them several extra leaflets to distribute in the barracks. Such activities were audacious and very dangerous.

Lilli was in contact with two liaison officers from the Austrian National Front group, Hélène and Nic, who provided her with the leaflets to be distributed. It was Nic who obtained the fake identity card, in the name of Claude Berger, for Lilli. The Gestapo soon began searching for her for resistance activities. She moved with her mother and her sister, Anna. Resistance had become a family occupation. At their new address, 9, rue Campagne-Première in the 14th district, everyone was involved. Her mother Malka stamped all the leaflets with a swastika, in red ink. And her sister Anna went with her to the Trocadero district, to distribute the leaflets outside the barracks and garages.

The agents of the Austrian National Front, Hélène and Nic, were arrested by the Gestapo. The family was now in great danger. Lilli’s mother, Malka, and her sister found other accommodation at 21, passage Lauzin, and then decided to go into hiding at Mansigné in the Sarthe department. Serka, alias “Olga”, Szpiro Abush (born April 24, 1900 in Lublin) hid Lilli for 99 days at her home at 12, boulevard Poissonnière, between her birthday in August and the end of November 1943[18]. Finally, the three women returned to rue Campagne-Première in January 1944. Suzanne came back to Paris from Montauban, as her husband Albert Kolb had been deported from Drancy on March 4, 1943 and would be killed, either in Sobibor or in Majdanek[19]. Another Viennese native and resistance fighter, Alfred Fritz, also lived at the same address[20]. The Gestapo came to the door of the building more than once, but the janitors always denied that Lilli lived there.

Torture and inhumane treatment

On March 30, 1944, they sought “in vain” for Lilli, following “information from the Germans, who reported her as a communist”. However, on May 4, 1944, Lilli was arrested, together with her sisters Anna Ude and Suzanne Kolb, as well as their mother Malka Reisel Blumenstock and Alfred Fritz, at their home at 9, rue Campagne-Première, by Gestapo agents and French police officers from Paris[21]. The Charpentier couple, the building’s janitors, were also arrested and became “political internees”. The resistance activists were detained in Fresnes prison. Lilli, who was deemed to be the leader of the resistance group, was subjected to more than fifteen interrogations and was tortured. See the statements of Lilli Segal and Serka Abush, known as Olga, in the photo library below[22].

On July 27, after three months in prison, the four women were transferred from Fresnes to Drancy. From there, on July 31, a few days before her 35th birthday, Lilli Fisch, Suzanne Kolb (aged 40), Anna Ude (aged 44) and Malka Reisel Blumenstick (aged 64), boarded a bus to Bobigny station. From there, they were deported to Auschwitz on Convoy No. 77. The convoy included 40 other people who had been imprisoned and tortured in Fresnes, and 23 people from Vienna, including Alfred Fritz and Lilli Ségal[23]. The train arrived in Auschwitz on August 3.

Lilli was selected to enter the camp and had the number A 16702 tattooed on her left arm. She was kept in Auschwitz until October 26, 1944, when she was transferred to Gross Rosen Liebau Concentration Camp to work in a Kommando unit made up of women from France. Liebau was a village in Lower Silesia in Germany (now Lubowska, in Poland). This concentration camp has been in operation since September 1944.

About 550 women from France, Belgium, Holland, Poland and Hungary worked in three forced labor camps. One was the Kurt Laske factory, where the women made ammunition boxes. Another was the Heinz Wendt Maschinenfabrik, where they made parts for airplanes. Lilli was assigned to the third, the Nordland GmbH factory, where she worked in the manufacture of tank crawler tracks[24]. She worked at least 12 hours straight, either day or night, as did her fellow victims. The women were given a little food three times a day. For breakfast they had a quarter of a loaf of bread, a touch of butter and coffee and for lunch and dinner they had a bowl of very thin, clear soup. Six months later, on May 8, 1945, the Russian army liberated the Liebau camp.

From Liebau, Lilli returned to France. She first went through the Saint-Avold center, where was disinfected, had a health inspection and a Military Police check, and was then issued with a repatriation card. Lilli weighed just 77 pounds (35 kg), and the trauma of deportation, the death of her mother sisters and the slavery, had resulted in amenorrhea. She was finally repatriated to the Hotel Lutetia in Paris on June 5, 1945 and then returned to her apartment at 9, rue Campagne-Première.

Back home

Lilli soon met a man called Moses Auchman, who was born on March 5, 1901 in Torczyn, Ukraine. Moses had served as a volunteer in the 12th foreign infantry regiment in La Valbonne. Having enlisted on October 4, 1939, he fought with his unit in the Aisne department, and was taken prisoner on June 8, 1940 near Soissons and then interned at Stalag VII A. Located in Moosburg in Bavaria, this was the largest prisoner of war camp in Germany. 80,000 prisoners were held there when it was liberated by the Russian army on April 29, 1945. Moses was repatriated to France on May 16, 1945 and was demobilized in Marseille on October 4, 1945.

Moses and Lilli had a daughter, Anne Marie, who was born in July 1946 in Paris, and they were married on November 26, 1949 at the Town Hall of the 14th d. Lilli then became French by marriage. In June 1950, Moïse obtained his doctorate in medicine and worked at the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants, a relief organization for Jewish children that had set up medical clinics after the war.

On October 21, 1954, after many years of paperwork and statements, Lilli received her Political Deportee card and recognition from the French government for her activities in the resistance. In the file she compiled to prove her involvement in the Resistance, there is in particular a letter from the resistance activist Lilli Ségal, dated October 25, 1949, in which she testified to Lilli’s presence in Fresnes and to her interrogation and torture on Avenue Foch. She also stated that while in Drancy, she was introduced to Lilli “by the Austrian group as a liaison agent for their network who had carried out the most dangerous missions during the years 1942 and 1943”. Raymonde Fouque, an officially recognized member of the Resistance, also testified to Lilli’s involvement. She had met Lilli in 1942 “as a liaison agent for my resistance network” and in 1943 ” concerning the distribution and circulation of anti-German pamphlets”. It should be noted that, after the war, as was also the case for Lilli Segal, the title of resistant deportee was refused to Lilli Frisch, despite her internment in Fresnes as a resistance activist, the witness statements and her two-page handwritten argument as shown below (Editor’s note: Serge Jacubert).

Lilli continued her pre-war career in fashion as a fur technician and milliner. Moses died in 1960 and she was widowed for the second time in her life. She always remained very much a republican, crying during the Marseillaise and voting in all the elections. She had dedicated her life to defending both. And despite everything, she also remembered what she had learned from her activism when she told her daughter “never go into a police station alone”. After suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for nine years, Lilli died on August 28, 2001, in Paris, at the age of 92.

References

[1] In this biography, I have used official Austrian names. The Polish Yiddish names of each member of this family in Lublin, in the Russian Empire, were: Szlomo Zelman Blumensztock, Malka Rajzel Micenmacher, Channa Blumensztock, Matys Blumensztock and Sura Rywka Blumensztock.

[2] Source : birth certificate 1632 – Österreich, Niederösterreich, Wien, Matriken der Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde, 1784-1911- Autriche, Basse-Autriche, Vienna, Registres de la communauté juive, 1784-1911, Registers for the Jewish Community of Vienna 1784-1911 (online source: www.familysearch.org)

[3] ttps://www.statistik.at/blickgem/vz1/g92001.pdf

[4] https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Vereinssynagoge_des_Brigittenauer_Israelitischen_Tempelvereins, et https://www.bh.org.il/jewish-spotlight/austria/vienna/synagogues/

[5] Family archives and https://geoffreyshisler.com/cantorial-world-of-vienna-1860-1938/

[6] Source : http://agadd.home.net.pl/metrykalia/300/sygn.%202858/pages/1_300_0_0_2858_0144.htm, et https://www.doew.at/erinnern/biographien/spanienarchiv-online/spanienfreiwillige-f/fisch-moses

[7] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Bettauer et The Columbia Historical Review, volume 2, winter 2002, “A Wary Silence: Karl Kraus In Interwar  Vienna” by Alexander Moulton, page 15. http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.columbia.edu%2Fcu%2Fhistory%2Fpdf%2Fchr_vol2.pdf

[8] https://www.genteam.at/index.php?option=com_gesamt

[9] Archives Nationales de France – Fonds de Moscou

[10] Archives de Paris

[11] « Auguste Touchard » in Dictionnaire biographique Le Maitron, http://maitron-en-ligne.univ-paris1.fr/spip.php?article132866

[12] Archive de famille et, « Moses Fisch » in Dictionnaire biographique Le Maitron, http://maitron-en-ligne.univ-paris1.fr/spip.php?article113361

[13] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht

[14] Wikipedia – gouvernement Daladier

[15] Archives Nationales de France – Fonds de Moscou, dossier Fisch

[16] Arolsen Archives, Israel State Archives et Fonds de Moscou, dossier Ude et Kolb

[17] A.N. Fonds de Moscou, dossier Fisch

[18] Concerning the Sarthe, see the excellent website https://lesdeportesdesarthe.wordpress.com/blumenstock-malka-nee-munrenmacher/ et https://lesdeportesdesarthe.wordpress.com/hude-anna-nee-blummensftock/.
In the Caen archives, Dossier Lilli FISCH 21 P 699 867. Serka Abush, known as “Olga”, “Resistance medal, member of the Comète and Libération du Nord (sic) networks, commemorative cross” testifies on stamped paper on 11th June 1951 that “Madame Fisch Lilly” was “hunted down by Gestapo agents for her resistance activities” and hid in her home.

[19] Convoi 50 – Yad Vashem et Mémorial de la Shoah

[20] Voir la biographie d’Alfred Fritz sur ce site convoi77.org. Il aurait été le compagnon de Lilli. https://convoi77.org/en/deporte_bio/fritz-alfred/

[21] Convoi77.org et stevemorse.org/France, site bilingue du Mémorial de la Déportation des Juifs de France

[22] Archives de Caen Dossier Lilli FISCH 21 P 699 867

[23] Lilli SÉGAL, née Schlessinger, in Archives de Caen Dossier Lilli FISCH 21 P 699 867

[24] Archives de Caen Dossier Lilli FISCH 21 P 699 867

[25] Témoignage de sa fille.

Lilli AUCHMAN, widowed name FISCH, née BLUMENSTOCK

Photo on the front of a postcard, dated March 7, 1928, from Anne-Marie Auchman’s collection.

Born on August 13, 1909 in Vienna, Austria, died on August 28, 2001 in Paris, France.

Biography researched, documented and written by Olivier Szlos and Anne-Marie Auchman, Lilli’s daughter, with the help of Laurence Klejman for proofreading.

Lilli Fisch was born on August 13, 1909 in Vienna, Austria. She arrived in France together with her husband in the spring of 1937 and lived there for a while with her family. Arrested for acts of resistance and deported as a Jew along with her mother and sisters, she left Drancy on Convoy 77. She survived, and returned home to France where she remarried and started a family. She died in Paris on August 28, 2001.

Vienna

Russia’s war against Japan was raging and it was during these months, between 1904 and 1905, that Schlome Zelmann Blumenstock (born in 1876) and Malka Reisel Munzenmacher (born in 1880), originally from the city of Lublin, which had been under occupation by the Russian Empire since 1795, together with their three young children, Anna, Mathias and Suzanne, left their parents’ land forever for Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire[1].

This family of Jewish Polish migrants settled in the Brigittenau neighborhood, in the 20th district of Vienna, a growing city. The population of the 20th was increasing rapidly as a result of the arrival of thousands of immigrants such as the Blumenstocks. Soon after their arrival, Fanny and Elsa were born. Lilli, the youngest of the Blumenstock family, was born at 13, rue Ossmargasse on August 13, 1909[2].

From a population of 71,445 in 1900, the district had 101,326 inhabitants by the end of the decade [3]. The religious center of Vienna’s 20th district was the synagogue, at 11 Kluckygasse. Designed by the architect Jakob Gartner (1861-1921), the Brigittenauer Temple, which seated 560 men and women, was built between 1899-1900. It was financed by the Synagogue Association, which was founded in 1875. On September 20, 1900, the synagogue was inaugurated[4].

Although we do not have any details about Lilli’s childhood, we can imagine her life as a schoolgirl in a middle-class family, with her father running a business. We know from her 1949 identity card that at that time she was just under 5 feet tall (1.52 m), with brown eyes and dark chestnut hair.

Beginning in 1920, and for the next fourteen years, Schlome and his wife Malka Reizel had the pleasure of witnessing their daughters’ marriages at the Brigittenauer Temple: Anna married Richard M. Ude in 1920; Suzanne chose Albert Kolb in 1928; Elsa married Beno God in 1932 and Fanny married Schulim Joseph Fisch in 1933. And then, at the age of twenty-five, on March 4, 1934, Lilli married Mojsesz Fisch. Their witnesses were Schulim Fisch, Mojsesz’ brother, and Albert Kolb. Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein and Hazan Shmuel Landerer performed the marriage ceremony[5]. Lilli’s husband, a merchant [handelsangestellter], was born on June 12, 1910 in Kopyczynce, Tarnopol, in Austrian Galicia, but this having been Polish territory since 1921, Lilli, now married, and Mojsesz were considered Polish citizens[6].

The Viennese author and journalist, Hugo Bettauer, wrote a lot about anti-Semitism and, in 1922, he published a satirical, prophetic novel, Die Stadt ohne Juden, or The City without Jews. In it, he described the deportation of Jews from Vienna in railway wagons[7], and 250,000 copies were sold. Tragically, Bettauer was assassinated in 1925, one year after the release of the feature film based on his book. Political tensions in Vienna were running high.

On January 30, 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and the Weimar Republic made way for the Third Reich of Nazi Germany. In March 1934, brutal police crackdowns against the Viennese Socialists began to take place. Then, in July of that summer, the Austrian Nazis attempt a coup d’état. The political reality of Vienna after the fall of the Habsburg Monarchy in the 1910s can be summed up as a battle, between the anti-Semitism of the nationalist and Christian parties and the Social Democratic and Jewish parties, for the hearts of the Viennese people. Lily and Mojsesz were active members of the Socialist Party.

Lilli’s father, Schlome Blumenstock, died on April 1, 1936 in his apartment in Brigittenau in Vienna. He was buried on April 3 in the Zentralfriedhof cemetery number IV. His grave is still there today[8].

Paris

France, the land of hope and of the Declaration of Human Rights, was at that time, more than ever, a destination of choice for Jews who were leaving their countries in search of a better life. Léon Blum became Prime Minister on June 4, 1936 and led a coalition of several left-wing parties. Known as the Front Populaire, or Popular Front, this government, in a little over a year, enacted laws that benefited workers, giving them 15 days of paid holidays and a shorter working week of forty hours. Blum introduced the concepts of vacations and free time. The policy of the Popular Front was in sharp contrast with events elsewhere when, in July 1936, Spain fell into the Civil War, and Hitler, who wanted Austria, signed an agreement guaranteeing its independence. On October 22, 1936, the International Brigades were officially formed to fight alongside the Spanish Republicans against Franco’s military coup d’état. Communists and internationalists from all over the world joined forces to stand in his way.

Mojsesz Fisch arrived in France on March 27, 1937, passing through customs at the border post at Les Ponts du Rhin, in Alsace. He held a Polish passport obtained in Vienna in 1935, with a visa valid until 13 May 1937. Lilli joined her husband in France on May 12, 1937, crossing the border at Saint Louis, also in Alsace, with a Polish passport and a tourist visa, issued at the French Consulate in Vienna, valid until July 8, 1937. Time was therefore short for Mojsesz and Lilli to establish a legal presence in France. At the end of May, the 1937 International Exhibition opened its doors in Paris and Lilli quickly found a job there for the duration of the exhibition, which ran until the end of November. Suzanne and Albert Kolb also worked at the Exhibition. On June 10, 1937, Lilli obtained her identity card, which also served as a residence permit. She and her husband lived at 3 bis passage Lauzin, in the same district. They continued with the legalization process with the help of the French League for the Defense of Human and Citizen’s Rights, having introduced themselves as political refugees, saying that this was the reason that they had left Austria. On August 15, two days after her 28th birthday, Lilli and Mojsesz moved to 33, rue Rébeval, in the Belleville district. Like Brigittenau in Vienna, Belleville had become home for many Jewish immigrants since the turn of the century[9].

On November 8, 1937, Mojsesz was entered in the Register of Commerce in the Seine department as a women’s clothing manufacturer and thus became legally entitled to trade[10]. The Fisches were now well on their way to becoming permanent residents in Paris. They were assisted by Auguste Touchard, a member of parliament for the 1st constituency of the 19th district, who wrote to the Minister of the Interior to help Mojsesz obtain his identity card. On December 10, 1937, Marx Dormoy, Minister of the Interior in Camille Chautemps’ government, replied to say that he had approved the request.

Touchard was also a member and activist in the Communist Party and, since the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, he had undertaken several assignments in Spain in support of the Republicans[11]. It is therefore highly likely that Mojsesz was influenced by this militant politician and he volunteered to fight with the XI International Brigade. He became a member of the Edgar-Andre Battalion, previously the Austro-German Battalion, and left for Spain on January 29, 1938. The future of the Fisch couple came to a tragic end on April 1, 1938, when Mojsesz died in combat in the Batea area, in the province of Tarragona, in Catalonia[12].

The Anschluss and the war

On March 12, 1938, Nazi Germany invaded Austria, met with no resistance and annexed Austria, which ceased to exist as a political state. This was known as the Anschluss, (in English the Annexation of Austria), and the anti-Jewish laws that had been enacted in Nuremberg in 1935 also became law in Austria. For Austrian Jews, this brought about overt repression, humiliation and suffering.

From November 9 to 10, 1938, the Nazis unleashed their rage against the Jews during the Kristallnacht pogrom (sometimes known in English as the Night of Broken Glass). At 7 p.m., the Brigittenau Temple was attacked and looted. On Heydrich’s orders, members of the Assault Section and Hitler Youth looted all of the silver religious objects and ripped up the fabrics. The synagogue’s archives were saved, to be sent to the intelligence service in Berlin. The Torah Ark was set on fire and the entire synagogue collapsed beneath the flames. Of all the synagogues in Vienna, only one was spared. Hundreds of people were killed and wounded and many women raped. 6,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Dachau. Vienna’s synagogues would never be rebuilt[13].

In France, the Daladier government came to power two days after the Anschluss. Its political policy was to promote the employment of French people. The Popular Front laws such as the 40-hour week and the rest day on Saturdays were abolished. New laws to restrict foreigners’ rights were passed on May 2 and November 12. Internment camps were built in France, such as that at Gurs, where refugees from the Spanish Civil War were imprisoned. Life for foreigners applying to live in France became increasingly uncertain and more complicated, particularly for Jews fleeing Eastern and Central Europe, but this did not deter them from coming, even as preparations for war were intensifying[14].

Lilli was sentenced to one month in prison on March 10, 1938, for having stayed in France after the expiry of the validity of her residence visa. She was then refused a residence permit and was ordered to leave the country. However, the French League for the Defense of Human and Citizen’s Rights took on the task of pleading her case with the government[15] and, as a result, she was finally granted permission to stay.

A little more than two months after Mojsesz’s death, Lilli’s sister, Anna Ude, recently widowed, arrived in France on June 13, 1938, with a German passport issued in Vienna with a visa valid until July 8, 1938. She moved in with Lilli at 33, rue Rébeval. Their brother Mathias had been arrested in Vienna on account of his being Jewish on June 24, 1938 and was still imprisoned in the concentration camps at Dachau, Buchenwald and Mauthausen. He was released on May 11, 1939 and joined Lilli in Paris on June 14, 1939. Lilli’s sister Suzanne and her husband Albert Kolb left Vienna and returned to France on July 9, 1938. They lived in Chelles, in the Seine et Marne department. The matriarch of the family, Malka Reisel, Schlome’s widow, arrived in France on 7 August 1938 and joined her daughters on rue Rébeval. Elsa and her husband Beno God, with their daughter Pnina, also left Vienna, but instead of heading for France, they left for Palestine where they arrived on August 15, 1938 and joined Fanny and Joseph Fisch. The Blumenstocks were no longer Viennese[16].

It is clear that while earning her living as a seamstress in the women’s ready-to-wear clothing trade, having taken over her husband’s business registration number, Lilli was in close contact with Austrian refugee circles in Paris. Such as, probably, one of Mojzesz’s war comrades, Josef Stadlbauer, who was a prisoner in the Gurs concentration camp. He wrote a letter dated 14 July 1939 to the Minister of the Interior Albert Sarrault, pleading for his release so that he could leave for Tangier. He gave his Parisian address as that of Lilli Fisch at 33, rue Rébeval[17].

On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany attacked and invaded Poland, and France declared war on September 3, 1939. On September 18, the Germans entered Lublin, Poland. Mathias volunteered to join the Compagnie de Travailleurs Etrangers (C.T.E.), or Company of Foreign Workers. From May 1940 onwards, millions of people attempted to flee the invaders, and there was a mass exodus. Suzanne and Albert Kolb left for Montauban and Anna and Malka Reisel for the Sarthe department. Lili remained in Paris. On 14 June 1940, the German army entered Paris and the occupation began. On 18 June, from London, General De Gaulle launched his appeal to ask people to continue to resist.

The Resistance

In December 1941, Lilli came into contact with the Austrian National Front, an organization for anti-German resistance in Paris. She became an agent in the group and her nom de guerre was Claude Berger. She specialized in the distribution of leaflets written in German. The aim was to persuade the soldiers to join the resistance and fight against the Nazi regime. The best places to meet these soldiers were in front of hospitals and, of course, German barracks. She placed these leaflets directly into the hands of the soldiers on Boulevard Saint-Michel. Lilli spoke to them in German, face to face, in cafés or in the street and sometimes even gave them several extra leaflets to distribute in the barracks. Such activities were audacious and very dangerous.

Lilli was in contact with two liaison officers from the Austrian National Front group, Hélène and Nic, who provided her with the leaflets to be distributed. It was Nic who obtained the fake identity card, in the name of Claude Berger, for Lilli. The Gestapo soon began searching for her for resistance activities. She moved with her mother and her sister, Anna. Resistance had become a family occupation. At their new address, 9, rue Campagne-Première in the 14th district, everyone was involved. Her mother Malka stamped all the leaflets with a swastika, in red ink. And her sister Anna went with her to the Trocadero district, to distribute the leaflets outside the barracks and garages.

The agents of the Austrian National Front, Hélène and Nic, were arrested by the Gestapo. The family was now in great danger. Lilli’s mother, Malka, and her sister found other accommodation at 21, passage Lauzin, and then decided to go into hiding at Mansigné in the Sarthe department. Serka, alias “Olga”, Szpiro Abush (born April 24, 1900 in Lublin) hid Lilli for 99 days at her home at 12, boulevard Poissonnière, between her birthday in August and the end of November 1943[18]. Finally, the three women returned to rue Campagne-Première in January 1944. Suzanne came back to Paris from Montauban, as her husband Albert Kolb had been deported from Drancy on March 4, 1943 and would be killed, either in Sobibor or in Majdanek[19]. Another Viennese native and resistance fighter, Alfred Fritz, also lived at the same address[20]. The Gestapo came to the door of the building more than once, but the janitors always denied that Lilli lived there.

Torture and inhumane treatment

On March 30, 1944, they sought “in vain” for Lilli, following “information from the Germans, who reported her as a communist”. However, on May 4, 1944, Lilli was arrested, together with her sisters Anna Ude and Suzanne Kolb, as well as their mother Malka Reisel Blumenstock and Alfred Fritz, at their home at 9, rue Campagne-Première, by Gestapo agents and French police officers from Paris[21]. The Charpentier couple, the building’s janitors, were also arrested and became “political internees”. The resistance activists were detained in Fresnes prison. Lilli, who was deemed to be the leader of the resistance group, was subjected to more than fifteen interrogations and was tortured. See the statements of Lilli Segal and Serka Abush, known as Olga, in the photo library below[22].

On July 27, after three months in prison, the four women were transferred from Fresnes to Drancy. From there, on July 31, a few days before her 35th birthday, Lilli Fisch, Suzanne Kolb (aged 40), Anna Ude (aged 44) and Malka Reisel Blumenstick (aged 64), boarded a bus to Bobigny station. From there, they were deported to Auschwitz on Convoy No. 77. The convoy included 40 other people who had been imprisoned and tortured in Fresnes, and 23 people from Vienna, including Alfred Fritz and Lilli Ségal[23]. The train arrived in Auschwitz on August 3.

Lilli was selected to enter the camp and had the number A 16702 tattooed on her left arm. She was kept in Auschwitz until October 26, 1944, when she was transferred to Gross Rosen Liebau Concentration Camp to work in a Kommando unit made up of women from France. Liebau was a village in Lower Silesia in Germany (now Lubowska, in Poland). This concentration camp has been in operation since September 1944.

About 550 women from France, Belgium, Holland, Poland and Hungary worked in three forced labor camps. One was the Kurt Laske factory, where the women made ammunition boxes. Another was the Heinz Wendt Maschinenfabrik, where they made parts for airplanes. Lilli was assigned to the third, the Nordland GmbH factory, where she worked in the manufacture of tank crawler tracks[24]. She worked at least 12 hours straight, either day or night, as did her fellow victims. The women were given a little food three times a day. For breakfast they had a quarter of a loaf of bread, a touch of butter and coffee and for lunch and dinner they had a bowl of very thin, clear soup. Six months later, on May 8, 1945, the Russian army liberated the Liebau camp.

From Liebau, Lilli returned to France. She first went through the Saint-Avold center, where was disinfected, had a health inspection and a Military Police check, and was then issued with a repatriation card. Lilli weighed just 77 pounds (35 kg), and the trauma of deportation, the death of her mother sisters and the slavery, had resulted in amenorrhea. She was finally repatriated to the Hotel Lutetia in Paris on June 5, 1945 and then returned to her apartment at 9, rue Campagne-Première.

Back home

Lilli soon met a man called Moses Auchman, who was born on March 5, 1901 in Torczyn, Ukraine. Moses had served as a volunteer in the 12th foreign infantry regiment in La Valbonne. Having enlisted on October 4, 1939, he fought with his unit in the Aisne department, and was taken prisoner on June 8, 1940 near Soissons and then interned at Stalag VII A. Located in Moosburg in Bavaria, this was the largest prisoner of war camp in Germany. 80,000 prisoners were held there when it was liberated by the Russian army on April 29, 1945. Moses was repatriated to France on May 16, 1945 and was demobilized in Marseille on October 4, 1945.

Moses and Lilli had a daughter, Anne Marie, who was born in July 1946 in Paris, and they were married on November 26, 1949 at the Town Hall of the 14th d. Lilli then became French by marriage. In June 1950, Moïse obtained his doctorate in medicine and worked at the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants, a relief organization for Jewish children that had set up medical clinics after the war.

On October 21, 1954, after many years of paperwork and statements, Lilli received her Political Deportee card and recognition from the French government for her activities in the resistance. In the file she compiled to prove her involvement in the Resistance, there is in particular a letter from the resistance activist Lilli Ségal, dated October 25, 1949, in which she testified to Lilli’s presence in Fresnes and to her interrogation and torture on Avenue Foch. She also stated that while in Drancy, she was introduced to Lilli “by the Austrian group as a liaison agent for their network who had carried out the most dangerous missions during the years 1942 and 1943”. Raymonde Fouque, an officially recognized member of the Resistance, also testified to Lilli’s involvement. She had met Lilli in 1942 “as a liaison agent for my resistance network” and in 1943 ” concerning the distribution and circulation of anti-German pamphlets”. It should be noted that, after the war, as was also the case for Lilli Segal, the title of resistant deportee was refused to Lilli Frisch, despite her internment in Fresnes as a resistance activist, the witness statements and her two-page handwritten argument as shown below (Editor’s note: Serge Jacubert).

Lilli continued her pre-war career in fashion as a fur technician and milliner. Moses died in 1960 and she was widowed for the second time in her life. She always remained very much a republican, crying during the Marseillaise and voting in all the elections. She had dedicated her life to defending both. And despite everything, she also remembered what she had learned from her activism when she told her daughter “never go into a police station alone”. After suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for nine years, Lilli died on August 28, 2001, in Paris, at the age of 92.

Lilli FISCH geb. BLUMENSTOCK, verh. Auchman

Foto einer Postkarte, datiert am 7. März 1928, Sammlung Anne-Marie Auchman.

13. August 1909 in Wien (Österreich) – 28. August 2001 in Paris (Frankreich)

Biographie erarbeitet, recherchiert und verffasst von Olivier Szlos und Anne-Marie Auchman, Tochter von Lilli, mit der Unterstützung von Laurence Klejman.

Lilli Fisch wurde am 13. August 1909 in Wien geboren. Ab Frühling 1937 kommt sie mit ihrem Ehemann nach Frankreich und lebt dort eine Weile mit ihrer Familie. Sie wird für ihre Arbeit in der Resistance und wird schließlich als Jüdin mit ihrer Mutter und Schwester über Drancy mit dem Convoi 77 deportiert. Sie überlebt und kehrt anch Frankreich zurück, wo sie erneut heiratet und eine Familie gründet. Lilli verstirbt am 28. August 2001 in Paris.

Wien

In den Monaten zwischen 1904 und 1905 verließen Schlome Zelmann Blumenstock (geb. 1876) und Malka Reisel Munzenmacher (geb. 1880), die aus der Stadt Lublin stammen, die seit 1795 vom Russischen Reich besetzt war, zusammen mit ihren drei kleinen Kindern Anna, Mathias und Suzanne das Land und zogen in die Hauptstadt des österreichisch-ungarischen Reiches [1].

Diese Familie polnisch-jüdischer Einwanderer ließ sich im Stadtteil Brigittenau, dem zwanzigsten Bezirk der wachsenden Stadt Wien, nieder. Die Bevölkerung der 20er Jahre wuchs dank der Ankunft von Tausenden von Einwanderern rasch an. Bald wurden Fanny und Elsa geboren. Lilli, die jüngste der Blumenstock-Familie, wurde am 13. August 1909 [2] in der Ossmargasse 13 geboren.

Von 71.445 Einwohnern im Jahr 1900 hatte der Bezirk am Ende des Jahrzehnts 101.326 Einwohner[3]. Das religiöse Zentrum des 20. Wiener Gemeindebezirks war die Synagoge in der Kluckygasse 11. Der von dem Architekten Jakob Gartner (1861-1921) entworfene Brigittenauer Tempel mit 560 Sitzplätzen für Männer und Frauen wurde zwischen 1899-1900 erbaut; er wurde von dem 1875 gegründeten Synagogenverein finanziert. Am 20. September 1900 wurde die Synagoge eingeweiht [4].

Die Einzelheiten von Lilli’s Kindheit sind uns nicht überliefert, aber wir können uns ihr Leben als Schulmädchen und ein bürgerliches Familienleben vorstellen, ihr Vater führte ein Geschäft. Aus ihrem Personalausweis von 1949 wissen wir, dass sie 1,52 groß ist, braune Augen und dunkelbraunes Haar hat.

Ab 1920 und während der folgenden vierzehn Jahre hatten Schlome und seine Frau Malka Reizel das Glück, die Eheschließung ihrer Töchter im Brigittenauer Tempel mitzuerleben: Anna heiratete 1920 Richard M. Ude; Suzanne wählte 1928 Albert Kolb; Elsa heiratete 1932 Beno God; Fanny heiratete 1933 Schulim Joseph Fisch. Und im Alter von fünfundzwanzig Jahren, am 4. März 1934, heiratete Lilli Mojsesz Fisch. Ihre Trauzeugen sind Schulim Fisch, Bruder von Mojsesz und Albert Kolb. Lilli’s Ehemann, ein Kaufmann [Handelsangestellter], wurde am 12. Juni 1910 in Kopyczynce, Tarnopol, im österreichischen Galizien geboren, das aber seit 1921 zum polnischem Gebiet gehörte, so dass die heute verheiratete Lilli und Mojsesz als polnische Staatsbürger gelten.

Der Wiener Schriftsteller und Journalist Hugo Bettauer schrieb über Antisemitismus und veröffentlichte 1922 den Vorläuferroman Die Stadt ohne Juden, in dem er die Vertreibung von Juden mit Eisenbahnwaggons beschrieb, um sie aus Wien zu deportieren [7]. 7] 250.000 Exemplare wurden verkauft. Tragischerweise wurde Bettauer 1925 ermordet, ein Jahr nachdem der auf seinem Buch basierende Spielfilm erschienen war. Die politischen Spannungen in Wien waren hoch.

Am 30. Januar 1933 wird Adolf Hitler zum Reichskanzler und die Weimarer Republik wird durch das Deutsche Reich der Nationalsozialisten ersetzt. Im März 1934 kam es zu brutalen Polizeirepressionen gegen die Wiener Sozialisten. Im Juli jenes Sommers versuchten die österreichischen Nazis einen Staatsstreich umzusetzten. Die politische Realität Wiens nach dem Sturz der Habsburgermonarchie in den 1910er Jahren lässt sich als Kampf um die Seelen der Wiener Bevölkerung zwischen dem Antisemitismus der nationalistischen und christlichen Parteien sowie der sozialdemokratischen und jüdischen Parteien zusammenfassen. Lily und Mojsesz waren in den Reihen der Sozialistischen Partei aktiv.

Lilli’s Vater, Schlome Blumenstock, starb am 1. April 1936 in seiner Wohnung in Brigittenau in Wien. Er wurde am 3. April auf dem Zentralfriedhof Nummer IV beigesetzt. Sein Grab existiert noch heute [8].

Paris

Frankreich, Land der Hoffnung und der Erklärung der Menschenrechte, war mehr denn je ein bevorzugtes Ziel für Juden, die ihr Land für ein besseres Leben verließen. Léon Blum wurde am 4. Juni 1936 Premierminister und führte eine Koalition aus mehreren linken Parteien an. Diese Volksfront verkündete seit etwas mehr als einem Jahr Gesetze, die den Arbeitnehmern mit 15 Tagen bezahlten Urlaub und der Verkürzung der Arbeitszeit mit der Vierzig-Stunden-Woche zugute kommen. Blum führte die Begriffe Urlaub und Freizeit ein. Die Politik der Volksfront steht in scharfem Kontrast zu den äußeren Ereignissen, als Spanien im Juli 1936 in einen Bürgerkrieg gerät und Hitler, der Österreich will, ein Abkommen unterzeichnet, das seine Unabhängigkeit garantiert. Am 22. Oktober 1936 werden die Internationalen Brigaden offiziell gebildet, um an der Seite der spanischen Republikaner gegen den Militärputsch Francos zu kämpfen. Kommunisten und Internationalisten aus der ganzen Welt organisieren sich, um ihm den Weg zu versperren.

Mojsesz Fisch kam am 27. März 1937 in Frankreich an und passierte den Zoll am Grenzposten Les Ponts du Rhin im Elsass. Er hatte einen polnischen Reisepass, der 1935 in Wien erworben wurde, sein Visum war bis zum 13. Mai 1937 gültig. Lilli kam am 12. Mai 1937 zu ihrem Ehemann nach Frankreich und überquerte die Grenze in Saint Louis, Elsass, mit einem polnischen Reisepass und einem Touristenvisum, das im französischen Konsulat in Wien ausgestellt wurde und bis zum 8. Juli 1937 gültig war. Die Zeit drängte Mojsesz und Lilli daher, ihre Präsenz in Frankreich zu regularisieren. Ende Mai öffnete die Internationale Ausstellung 1937 in Paris ihre Tore, und Lilli fand dort schnell eine Stelle für die Dauer der Ausstellung bis Ende November. Suzanne und Albert Kolb arbeiteten ebenfalls für die Dauer der Ausstellung; sie wohnten in der Rue Rébeval 24, im 19. Arrondissement von Paris. Am 10. Juni 1937 erhält Lilli ihren Personalausweis, der auch als Aufenthaltsgenehmigung dient. Zusammen mit ihrem Ehemann wohnten sie in der Passage 3 bis Lauzin, im gleichen Bezirk. Sie setzten ihren Regularisierungsprozess mit Hilfe der Französischen Liga für die Verteidigung der Menschen- und Bürgerrechte fort, der sie sich als politische Flüchtlinge präsentieren, weshalb sie Österreich verlassen hatten. Am 15. August, zwei Tage nach ihrem 28. Geburtstag, zog Lilli mit Mojsesz in der Rue Rébeval 33 im Bezirk Belleville ein. Wie Brigittenau in Wien hatte Belleville seit der Jahrhundertwende jüdische Einwanderer aufgenommen [9].

9] Am 8. November 1937 wurde Mojsesz im Seine-Handelsregister als Damenschneider eingetragen und konnte sein Gewerbe legal ausüben. 10] Die Fisches sind auf dem besten Weg, in Paris dauerhaft ansässig zu werden. Sie erhalten Hilfe von Auguste Touchard, Abgeordneter des 1. Wahlkreises des XIX. Bezirks in der Nationalversammlung, der an den Innenminister schreibt, um Mojsesz zu helfen, seinen Personalausweis zu erhalten. Am 10. Dezember 1937 antwortete Marx Dormoy, Innenminister in der Regierung von Camille Chautemps, dass er diese Initiative unterstütze.

Als Parlamentsabgeordneter war Touchard auch Mitglied und Aktivist der Kommunistischen Partei, und seit Beginn des spanischen Bürgerkriegs unternahm er mehrere Missionen in Spanien zur Unterstützung der Republikaner [11]. Es ist daher sehr wahrscheinlich, dass Mojsesz von diesem militanten Politiker beeinflusst wurde und er sich freiwillig zum Kampf mit der 11. Internationalen Brigade, Mitglied des Edgar-Andre-Bataillons für die Österreicher-Deutschen, meldete und am 29. Januar 1938 nach Spanien abreiste. Die Zukunft des Ehepaars Fisch fand ein tragisches Ende, als Mojsesz am 1. April 1938 im Kampf im Sektor Batea in der Provinz Tarragona, Katalonien, starb [12].

L’Anschluss und der Krieg

Am 12. März 1938 marschierten die Nazis widerstandslos in Österreich ein und annektierten Österreich als politischen Staat; es war der Anschluss, und die 1935 in Nürnberg erlassenen Gesetze gegen die Juden sind nun Gesetze in Österreich. Für österreichische Juden bringen diese Ereignisse offen Repression, Demütigung und Leid.

Vom 9. bis 10. November 1938 kam es nur Reichspogromnacht gegen die Juden. Um 19.00 Uhr wird der Brigittenau-Tempel angegriffen und geplündert. Auf Heydrichs Befehl plünderten Mitglieder der Sturmabteilung (SA) und der Hitlerjugend alle silbernen Kultgegenstände und zerrissen die Textilien. Das Archiv der Synagoge wurde aufbewahrt, um an den Nachrichtendienst in Berlin geschickt zu werden. Der Thorabogen wurde in Brand gesteckt, und die gesamte Synagoge stürzte unter den Flammen ein. Von allen Synagogen in Wien ist nur eine einzige verschont geblieben. Hunderte werden getötet, verletzt und Frauen vergewaltigt. 6.000 jüdische Männer wurden verhaftet und nach Dachau geschickt. Die Synagogen von Wien werden nie wieder aufgebaut werden [13].

In Frankreich ließ sich die Regierung Daladier zwei Tage nach dem Anschluss nieder. Die politische Aufgabe war es, die Beschäftigung der Franzosen zu begünstigen, die Gesetze der Volksfront wie die 40-Stunden-Woche oder die Samstagsruhe abzuschaffen. Am 2. Mai und 12. November wird ein neues Gesetz zur Kontrolle von Ausländern verabschiedet. In Frankreich werden Internierungslager gebaut, wie z.B. in Gurs, wo Flüchtlinge aus dem spanischen Bürgerkrieg inhaftiert wurden. Das Leben für Ausländer, die darum bitten, in Frankreich leben zu dürfen, wurde unsicherer und komplizierter, vor allem für Juden, die aus Ost- und Mitteleuropa flohen, aber das hielt sie nicht davon ab, zu kommen, da die Kriegsvorbereitungen zunahmen [14].

Lilli wurde am 10. März 1938 zu einem Monat Gefängnishaft verurteilt, weil sie über das Datum ihres gültigen Aufenthaltsvisums hinaus in Frankreich geblieben war. Daraufhin wurde ihr die Aufenthaltsgenehmigung verweigert und sie musste das Land verlassen. Aber die französischen Zusatändigen für die Verteidigung der Menschen- und Bürgerrechte kümmerte sich darum, ihren Fall bei der Regierung vorzutragen [15]. Schließlich durfte sie nach dieser Intervention bleiben.

Etwas mehr als zwei Monate nach Mojsesz’ Tod kam Anna UDE, die Witwe ihres Mannes, am 13. Juni 1938 mit einem deutschen Reisepass, der in Wien mit einem bis zum 8. Juli 1938 gültigen Visum ausgestellt worden war, in Frankreich an. Sie zog bei Lilli in der Rue Rébeval 33 ein. Mathias wurde in Wien verhaftet, weil er am 24. Juni 1938 Jude war und bis zu seiner Freilassung am 11. Mai 1939 in den Konzentrationslagern Dachau, Buchenwald und Mauthausen inhaftiert blieb; am 14. Juni 1939 wird er zu Lili gehen. Suzanne und Albert KOLB verließen Wien und kehrten am 9. Juli 1938 nach Frankreich zurück und lebten in Chelles, in der Seine et Marne. Matriarchin Malka Reisel, die Witwe von Schlome, kam am 7. August 1938 nach Frankreich und begleitete ihre Töchter in die Rue Rébeval. Elsa und ihr Mann Beno God verließen mit ihrer Tochter Pnina Wien, aber anstatt nach Frankreich zu gehen, gehen sie nach Palästina, wo sie am 15. August 1938 ankommen und sich Fanny und Joseph FISCH anschließen. Die Blumenstocks waren nicht mehr wienerisch [16].

Es ist klar, dass Lilli, während sie nach der Übernahme der Handelsregisternummer ihres Mannes ihren Lebensunterhalt als Schneiderin in der Damenkonfektion verdiente, den Kreisen der österreichischen Flüchtlinge in Paris sehr nahe stand. Wie zum Beispiel wahrscheinlich ein Kriegskamerad von Mojzesz, Josef Stadlbauer, der im Konzentrationslager Gurs inhaftiert ist. Er sendet einen Brief vom 14. Juli 1939 an den Innenminister Albert Sarrault und bittet um seine Freilassung, damit er nach Tanger abreisen kann. Für seine Pariser Adresse gibt er die Adresse von Lilli Fisch in 33, rue Rébeval [17] an.

Am 1. September 1939 kam es zum Überfall von Polen durch die Nazis; Frankreich trat am 3. September 1939 in den Krieg ein. Am 18. September drangen die Deutschen im polnischen Lublin ein. Mathias arbeiteet ehrenamtlich für eine Kompanie ausländischer Arbeitskräfte (C.T.E.). Seit Mai 1940 versuchten Millionen von Menschen vor den Eindringlingen zu fliehen, es ist der Exodus. Suzanne und Albert Kolb fahren nach Montauban, Anna und Malka reisen nach Sarthe. Lili blieb in Paris. Am 14. Juni 1940 drang die deutsche Armee in Paris ein und besetzt die Stadt. Am 18. Juni lancierte General De Gaulle in London seinen Aufruf zur Fortsetzung der Kämpfe.

La Résistance

Im Dezember 1941 stand Lilli in Kontakt mit der Österreichischen Nationalen Front, einer Organisation für antideutschen Widerstand in Paris. Lilli wurde Agentin der Gruppe und ihr nom de guerre war Claude Berger. Sie war auf die Verteilung von Flugblättern in deutscher Sprache spezialisiert. Ziel war es, die Soldaten dazu zu bewegen, sich dem Widerstand anzuschließen und gegen das Nazi-Regime zu kämpfen. Die besten Orte, um diese Soldaten zu treffen, waren vor Krankenhäusern und natürlich vor den Kasernen der deutschen Soldaten. Sie gab diese Flugblätter direkt in die Hände der Soldaten auf dem Boulevard Saint-Michel. Lilli sprach mit ihnen auf Deutsch und traf sich in den Cafés oder auf der Straße und gab ihnen manchmal sogar mehrere Flugblätter, die sie selbst in den Baracken verteilen konnten. Ihre Tätigkeit war gewagt und sehr gefährlich.

Lilli stand in Kontakt mit zwei Verbindungsoffizieren der Gruppe der Österreichischen Nationalen Front, Hélène und Nic, die ihr die Flugblätter zum Verteilen zur Verfügung stellten. Es ist Nic, der für Lili einen falschen Personalausweis im Namen von Claude Berger erwirkte. Bald wird sie wegen Widerstandshandlungen von der Gestapo gesucht. Sie zog mit ihrer Mutter und ihrer Schwester Anna zusammen. Denn Widerstand war jetzt auch ein Familienberuf. An ihrer neuen Adresse, 9, rue Campagne-Première im 14. Arrondissement, leisten alle ihren Beitrag. Ihre Mutter Malka versah alle Flugblätter mit einem Hakenkreuzstempel in roter Tinte. Und seine Schwester Anna begleitete ihn in den Bezirk Trocadero, vor die Kasernen und Garagen, um die Flugblätter zu verteilen.

Die Agenten der Österreichischen Nationalen Front, Hélène und Nic, wurden schließlich von der GESTAPO verhaftet. Die Familie war in großer Gefahr. Ihre Mutter und ihre Schwester Malka hatten mit 21 Jahren ein anderes Zuhause, die Passage Lauzin, und beschließen dann, sich in der Sarthe, in Mansigné, zu verstecken. Serka, bekannt als “Olga” Szpiro ABUSH (geboren am 24. April 1900 in Lublin), versteckte Lilli zwischen ihrem Geburtstag im August und Ende November 1943 [18] 99 Tage lang in ihrem Haus am Boulevard Poissonnière 12. Schließlich kehrten die drei Frauen im Januar 1944 in die rue Campagne-Première zurück. Suzanne kehrte von Montauban nach Paris zurück, weil ihr Ehemann Albert KOLB am 4. März 1943 aus Drancy deportiert und entweder in Sobibor oder Majdanek getötet wurde [19]. Ein anderer gebürtiger Wiener und Widerstandskämpfer, Alfred Fritz, wohnte ebenfalls an derselben Adresse [20]. Die Gestapo kommt mehr als einmal an die Tür des Gebäudes, aber die Hausmeister bestreiten, dass Lilli dort wohnt.

Torturen und Unmenschlichkeiten

Am 4. Mai 1944 wurde Lilli zusammen mit ihren Schwestern Anna UDE und Suzanne KOLB und ihrer Mutter Malka REISEL BLUMENSTOCK und Alfred FRITZ im Haus 9, rue Campagne-Première, von GESTAPO-Agenten und französischen Polizeibeamten in Paris verhaftet [21]. Das Ehepaar CHARPENTIER, der Hausmeister des Gebäudes, wurde ebenfalls verhaftet und wird als politischer Häftling verhaftet. Die Widerstandskämpfer waren im Gefängnis von Fresnes inhaftiert. Lilli galt als Anführerin der Widerstandsgruppe; nach mehr als fünfzehn Verhören wurde sie gefoltert, siehe Foto unter den Zeugenaussagen von Lilli SEGAL und Serka ABUSH, bekannt als Olga [22].

Nach dreimonatiger Haft wurden die vier Frauen am 27. Juli nach Drancy geschickt. Von dort aus bestiegen am 31. Juli Lilli FISCH (wenige Tage vor ihrem 35. Geburtstag), Suzanne KOLB (40 Jahre alt), Anna UDE (44 Jahre alt) und Malka Reisel BLUMENSTOCK (64 Jahre alt) einen Bus zum Bahnhof von Bobigny, von wo aus sie mit dem Konvoi Nummer 77 nach Auschwitz deportiert wurden. In diesem Konvoi befanden sich 40 weitere Personen, die in Fresnes im Gefängnis saßen und gefoltert wurden, sowie 23 in Wien geborene Personen, darunter Alfred FRITZ und Lilli SÉGAL [23]. Der Zug traf am 3. August in Auschwitz ein.

Lilli kam in das Lager und bekam auf ihrem linken Arm die Nummer A 16702 tätowiert. Sie blieb in Auschwitz bis zum 26. Oktober 1944, dann wird sie in einem französischen Frauenarbeitskommando in das Konzentrationslager Gross Rosen Liebau verlegt. Liebau ist ein deutsches Dorf in Niederschlesien (heute Lubowska, Polen). Dieses Konzentrationslager war aseit September 1944 geöffnet.

Etwa 550 Frauen aus Frankreich, Belgien, Holland, Polen und Ungarn arbeiteten in drei Zwangsarbeitslagern. Es gab die Kurt Laske Fabrik, in der die Frauen Munitionskisten herstellten, des Weiteren gab es die Heinz Wendt Maschinenfabrik für die Herstellung von Flugzeugteilen. Lilli wurde dem Werk der Nordland GmbH in der Panzerkettenfabrik zugeordnet [24]. Sie arbeitete mindestens 12 Stunden am Stück, entweder Tag oder Nacht, genau wie ihre Leidensgenossinnen. Die Frauen bekamen dreimal täglich etwas zu essen, und zwar zum Frühstück: ein Viertel eines Brotlaibs, ein Hauch von Butter und Kaffee; zum Mittagessen: eine Schüssel klare Suppe; und zum Abendessen die gleiche Suppe. Sechs Monate später, am 8. Mai 1945, befreite die russische Armee das Lager Liebau.

Von Liebau aus kehrte Lilli zunächst über das Zentrum in Saint-Avold nach Frankreich zurück, wo ihr nach Desinfektion und Gesundheitskontrollen sowie denen der Militärpolizei eine Rückführungskarte ausgestellt wurde. Lilli wiegt 35 kg, und das Trauma der Deportation, der Tod ihrer Schwestern und ihrer Mutter sowie die Sklaverei hinterließen schwere Schäden. Am 5. Juni 1945 wurde sie schließlich in das Hotel Lutetia in Paris zurückgeführt und kehrte in ihre Wohnung in der Rue Campagne-Première 9 zurück.

Die Rückkehr

Bald lernte sie Moses Auchman kennen(geboren am 5. März 1901 in Torczyn, Ukraine). Moses diente als Freiwilliger im 12. ausländischen Infanterieregiment in La Valbonne. Er wurde am 4. Oktober 1939 eingegliedert, kämpfte mit seiner Einheit in der Aisne und wurde am 8. Juni 1940 in der Nähe von Soissons gefangen genommen und dann im Stalag VII A interniert. Es befindet sich im bayerischen Moosburg und ist das größte Kriegsgefangenenlager in Deutschland. Bei ihrer Befreiung durch die russische Armee am 29. April 1945 hielt sie 80.000 Gefangene. Moses wurde am 16. Mai 1945 nach Frankreich repatriiert und am 4. Oktober 1945 in Marseille demobilisiert.

Moses und Lilli hatten eine Tochter, Anne Marie, die im Juli 1946 in Paris geboren wurde, und sie heirateten am 26. November 1949 im Rathaus des 14. Arrondissements. Lilli wird dann durch Heirat Französin. Im Juni 1950 promovierte Moïse in Medizin und arbeitete bei der OSE, einem Hilfswerk für jüdische Kinder, das nach dem Krieg Waisenhäuser einrichtete.

Am 21. Oktober 1954 erhielt Lilli nach jahrelanger Bürokratie und Zeugenaussagen ihren Ausweis als politische Deportierte und die Anerkennung der französischen Regierung für ihre Aktivitäten im Widerstand. In der Akte, die sie zusammengetragen hat, um ihr Engagement zu beweisen, befindet sich ein Brief der Widerstandskämpferin Lilli SÉGAL, die in einem Brief vom 25. Oktober 1949 die Anwesenheit von Lilli in Fresnes sowie ihr Verhör und ihre Folterungen in der Avenue Foch bezeugt. Sie gibt auch an, dass sie in Drancy von “der österreichischen Gruppe als Verbindungsagentin für ihr Netzwerk, das in den Jahren 1942 und 1943 die gefährlichsten Missionen durchgeführt hatte”, vorgestellt wurde. Raymonde FOUQUE, ein anerkanntes Mitglied der Résistance, bezeugt ebenfalls die Tätigkeit von Lilli, die sie 1942 “als Verbindungsagentin für mein Widerstandsnetzwerk” und 1943 “bezüglich der Verteilung und Verbreitung antideutscher Flugblätter” kennen gelernt hatte. Es sei darauf hingewiesen, dass nach dem Krieg, wie im Falle von Lilli SEGAL, Lilli Frisch trotz ihrer Internierung in Fresnes als Widerstandskämpferin der Titel eines widerständigen Deportierten verweigert wurde, wobei die Zeugenaussagen und ihre handschriftliche Argumentation unten auf zwei Seiten wiedergegeben sind (Anmerkung von Serge JACUBERT).

Lilli setzt ihre vor dem Krieg begonnene Karriere in der Modebranche als Pelzhändlerin und Hutmacherin fort. 1960 verstirbt Moses und Lilli wird zum zweiten Mal in ihrem Leben Witwe. Sie wird immer sehr republikanisch sein, während der Marseillaise weinen und an allen Wahlen teilnehmen. Sie hatte ihr Leben gegeben, um beides zu verteidigen. Und trotz allem hat sie auch aus ihren Kämpfen gelernt, als sie ihrer Tochter sagte: “Geh nie allein auf ein Polizeirevier”. Nach neun Jahre Alzheimer Erkrankung, starb Lilli im Alter von 92 Jahren am 28. August 2001 in Paris [25].

References

[1] In this biography, I have used official Austrian names. The Polish Yiddish names of each member of this family in Lublin, in the Russian Empire, were: Szlomo Zelman Blumensztock, Malka Rajzel Micenmacher, Channa Blumensztock, Matys Blumensztock and Sura Rywka Blumensztock.

[2] Source : birth certificate 1632 – Österreich, Niederösterreich, Wien, Matriken der Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde, 1784-1911- Autriche, Basse-Autriche, Vienna, Registres de la communauté juive, 1784-1911, Registers for the Jewish Community of Vienna 1784-1911 (online source: www.familysearch.org)

[3] ttps://www.statistik.at/blickgem/vz1/g92001.pdf

[4] https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Vereinssynagoge_des_Brigittenauer_Israelitischen_Tempelvereins, et https://www.bh.org.il/jewish-spotlight/austria/vienna/synagogues/

[5] Family archives and https://geoffreyshisler.com/cantorial-world-of-vienna-1860-1938/

[6] Source : http://agadd.home.net.pl/metrykalia/300/sygn.%202858/pages/1_300_0_0_2858_0144.htm, et https://www.doew.at/erinnern/biographien/spanienarchiv-online/spanienfreiwillige-f/fisch-moses

[7] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Bettauer et The Columbia Historical Review, volume 2, winter 2002, “A Wary Silence: Karl Kraus In Interwar  Vienna” by Alexander Moulton, page 15. http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.columbia.edu%2Fcu%2Fhistory%2Fpdf%2Fchr_vol2.pdf

[8] https://www.genteam.at/index.php?option=com_gesamt

[9] Archives Nationales de France – Fonds de Moscou

[10] Archives de Paris

[11] « Auguste Touchard » in Dictionnaire biographique Le Maitron, http://maitron-en-ligne.univ-paris1.fr/spip.php?article132866

[12] Archive de famille et, « Moses Fisch » in Dictionnaire biographique Le Maitron, http://maitron-en-ligne.univ-paris1.fr/spip.php?article113361

[13] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht

[14] Wikipedia – gouvernement Daladier

[15] Archives Nationales de France – Fonds de Moscou, dossier Fisch

[16] Arolsen Archives, Israel State Archives et Fonds de Moscou, dossier Ude et Kolb

[17] A.N. Fonds de Moscou, dossier Fisch

[18] Concerning the Sarthe, see the excellent website https://lesdeportesdesarthe.wordpress.com/blumenstock-malka-nee-munrenmacher/ et https://lesdeportesdesarthe.wordpress.com/hude-anna-nee-blummensftock/.
In the Caen archives, Dossier Lilli FISCH 21 P 699 867. Serka Abush, known as “Olga”, “Resistance medal, member of the Comète and Libération du Nord (sic) networks, commemorative cross” testifies on stamped paper on 11th June 1951 that “Madame Fisch Lilly” was “hunted down by Gestapo agents for her resistance activities” and hid in her home.

[19] Convoi 50 – Yad Vashem et Mémorial de la Shoah

[20] Voir la biographie d’Alfred Fritz sur ce site convoi77.org. Il aurait été le compagnon de Lilli. https://convoi77.org/en/deporte_bio/fritz-alfred/

[21] Convoi77.org et stevemorse.org/France, site bilingue du Mémorial de la Déportation des Juifs de France

[22] Archives de Caen Dossier Lilli FISCH 21 P 699 867

[23] Lilli SÉGAL, née Schlessinger, in Archives de Caen Dossier Lilli FISCH 21 P 699 867

[24] Archives de Caen Dossier Lilli FISCH 21 P 699 867

[25] Témoignage de sa fille.