Gestapo Seizure of Jewish Property in Austria Document Signed by Dr. Karl Ebner

Authors

Object ID

2021.1.13

Object Name

Letter

Date

5-5-1943

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

Signed and stamped document from the “Geheime Staatspolizei” with the serial code “0-5-4210 Q0547” in the bottom left corner.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Document from Gestapo main office in Vienna, May 5, 1943 sent by Dr. Karl Ebner who was head of the Gestapo in Vienna, to a Willy Dwroak, also in Vienna, regarding the seizure of the goods of a Jew named Theodor Israel Ehrenstein. The document states that according to the law of 18 November 1938, Mr. Ehrenstein’s estate has been confiscated or retained by the government. Ebner also reports that “Vugesta,” the Gestapo office for disposing of the property, has seized it and is entrusted with its management.

The background of this document is the increasing pace of aryanization and the confiscation of Jewish property in both Germany and Austria - now part of Greater Germany after the Anschluss - and Kristallnacht of November 9 and 10, 1938. The specific ordinance referenced by Ebner is the “Ordinance on the Seizure of Assets of Enemies of the People and the State in Austria.” This is an example of the seizure of Jewish property carried out by the Nazi authorities during the Third Reich. Vugesta had been in operation since 1940 in order to aryanize Jewish property and use it for the “citizens” of Austria. By the date of Ebner’s document, most of Vugesta’s role consisted in disposing of the residential property of deported Jews, utilizing forced labor to remove the property from their homes. The property thus sold would add to the revenue of the Third Reich. Mr. Ehrenstein, with the required “Israel” middle name to identify him as a Jew, was in fact deported to Theresienstadt in October 1942. He would have been in his 70s and probably perished there.

Ebner himself had probably worked closely with Adolf Eichmann who, as head of the department of Jewish affairs, was sent to Vienna after the Anschluss to “encourage” Jews to “emigrate.”

Dimensions

11 1/2 x 8 1/4"

Keywords

Karl Ebner, Theodor Ehrenstein, Adolf Eichmann, Kristallnacht, Anschluss, Theresienstadt

Subcollection

Aryanization, Material

Recommended Citation

"Gestapo Seizure of Jewish Property in Austria Document Signed by Dr. Karl Ebner" (1943). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2021.1.13.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1715