One of the most demanding and elaborate cases we have ever handled, we received from an Austrian notary who sought the heirs of a surviving Jewish concentration camp prisoner with our help.
Through various file inspections, we quickly knew that the deceased had a brother whose fate was completely unclear. It was to be assumed that he had not survived the Holocaust due to his Mosaic religious affiliation. Research in victim lists brought no result, which is why we assumed that the deceased’s brother managed to survive the war.
We knew that he was 16 years old when Hitler came to power and assumed that he might have emigrated to the USA or Israel, but could not confirm any immigration in the relevant databases.
Help came from a list of the so-called Kindertransports; these were Jewish children who were enabled to flee to England without their parents on the eve of World War II. Equipped with a suitcase, a bag and 10 Reichsmarks, about 10,000 Jewish children were able to escape the Nazi regime.
Upon arrival in England, the children were placed in foster homes and in the records of such a home we finally found the name of the sought brother. Since the sought brother fortunately had a “sponsor” assigned to him by the British government, whose children we could ask about the whereabouts of the deceased’s brother, it turned out that he emigrated to Canada via Shanghai at the age of 18.
Soon after, we were able to determine the descendants of this brother in Ottawa and tell them about the fate of their uncle.
