Huilitschek, Kurt

Plot Location	2B15
Surname	Huilitschek
Given Name(s)	Kurt
Place of Birth	Vienna
Date of Birth (Eng)	February 19, 1911
Date of Birth (Heb)
Date of Death (Eng)	December 10, 1942
Date of Death (Heb)
Age at Death	31
Hebrew Name	יוסף בן אברהם
Spouse’s Name
Father’s Name	Karl Huilitschek (Huiliczek)
Mother’s Name	Hermine Gross (Groß)
Other Surnames
Sex	M
Marital Status	S
Maiden Name
Title (e.g., Dr)
Religious Status (כ/ל/י)
Cause of Death
Other Family Data	Siblings: Bertha (Berta) Huilitschek Richter (b. November 26, 1901), Erwin (b. July 12, 1903) and Helene (b. August 21, 1904). Half-brothers: Rudolf Huilitschek and Emil Huilitschek
Inscription (Eng)	IN MEMORY OF KURT HUILITSCHEK DIED 10-DEC. 1942 AGE 31 YEARS
Inscription (Heb)	‘ת’נ’צ’ב’ה
Inscription (Other)
Historical	He was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp from November 16, 1938 to February 18, 1939 (prisoner # 233345907; entry #29411). According to a local historian: “He was not among the first group of Austrians brought to Dachau (they had numbers 15000 following). That means there were no political aspects to imprison him (i.e., leftist political parties). He was sent to Dachau because he was Jew, after the ‘Reichskristallnacht’ on November 9, 1938.” According to the Hong Kong Refuge Research Project: “In the 1930s, amidst a wider Chinese refugee crisis, a small group of Jewish refugees came to Hong Kong to work as musicians, engineers and dressmakers. They found jobs despite Hong Kong’s strict immigration control thanks to the existing Jewish community, British intellectual progressives and through their own family connections. In September 1939, Austrian and German Jews were interned as ‘enemy aliens’ and in 1940 they were ordered to leave the colony by the Hong Kong Government. Most subsequently spent the duration of the Second World War confined to Shanghai’s infamous Hongkew Ghetto.” It’s likely that Kurt arrived in HK before September 1939 under the sponsorship of friends from Vienna (perhaps Irma Last (2B12)) who were already living here. His name can be found in the Frank Gimson files at HKU. According to Gimson, Kurt was a patient at the government mental hospital in 1941/42. While he was probably interned at La Salle College along with many other male Jewish refugees, he somehow was able to avoid expulsion to Shanghai in June 1940. Was he hidden by Irma? Perhaps so and we can speculate that when she died in November that year, he suffered a mental breakdown. The Huilitscheks lived at Groß Sperlgasse 32/40, Vienna II. Karl died on August 26, 1915, and is buried in the Wiener Zentralfriedhof, Section T1, Group 52, Row 28, Grave 28. Hermine died on March 11, 1946, and is buried in the same cemetery, Section T4, Group 20, Row 3, Grave 12. She had survived Theresienstadt. Helene was also deported to Theresienstadt on October 9, 1942. Of the 1339 Jews who were on her transport, only 273 survived. She was one of them and two years later, on October 19, 1944, she was sent to Auschwitz. Of the 1500 on that transport, only 76 survived. She was most likely sent straight to her death. Berta is listed in Yad Vashem’s database as “missing” by her husband Wilhelm. Presumably, she perished in Auschwitz as well. Wilhelm may have been in Shanghai in 1946. In September 1946, Erwin and his wife, Nellie Rosenberg, immigrated to Wellington, New Zealand, and changed their surname to Neill. He died on June 9, 1977, and is buried in Linwood Cemetery in Christchurch (Block 19, Plot 87). Nellie died on October 12, 1984, and is buried next to him. They had no children.

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