Description
The collection is comprised of documents relating to the deportation of Jews living in Vienna, Austria for Poland. It includes
a cover letter, instructions for deportation, and blank forms that deportees were required to complete. Deportation order
is dated October 27, 1939.
Background
Walter Wohlfeiler was born in Vienna, Austria in 1922, and died in San Francisco in 2008. Mr. Wohlfeiler fled Austria in 1939
with his mother, Theresa and sister, Gertrude. His father, Wilhelm, who had been deported to Nisko, was murdered in 1942.
Mr. Wohlfeiler practiced accountancy for over 40 years. He was married three times and had two sons and six stepchildren.Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany in March 1939. Jewish citizens of Austria were then subject to Germany's racial laws,
deprivation of rights, persecution, confiscation of property and marginalization. Nearly half of Austria's Jewish population
emigrated prior to the outbreak of war in September 1939. Deportations of the Viennese Jewish population began in the autumn
of 1939 when some 1,500 Jews from Vienna were deported to a detention camp in Nisko, Poland.