Wienerstraße 9 / Herrengasse 2 (laid in 2014)
The Löbl Family
A violent death in distant Estonia
Gustav Löbl, born March 12, 1880, in Raudnitz/Elbe, Bohemia,
Alice Löbl, née Silberstern, born May 1, 1894, in Teplitz-Schönau, Bohemia, and
son Kurt, born August 31, 1922, in Vienna.
The family went to Brno and was deported to Theresienstadt. On September 1, 1942, they were taken with another transport to Raasiku in Estonia, where they were murdered in a mass shooting.
Gustav Löbl had come from Vienna to Wiener Neustadt in 1910 and was authorized signatory of the Allgemeine Verkehrsbank in Wiener Neustadt. Around 1921 he married Alice Silberstern. In 1936, they moved to Wienerstraße 9, where the local branch office of the Verkehrsbank was also located. By then, Gustav Löbl had risen to the position of bank director.
Their son Kurt had attended the Federal Gymnasium since 1932. He even received his final school report in 1938, issued on July 2 with the so-called leaving certificate. The parents had apparently awaited his “de-schooling” before acting. At the end of July or on August 1, the family left Wiener Neustadt for Brno.
What happened to them during the next three years remains unclear. It is, however, documented that the entire family was deported from Brno to Theresienstadt on January 28, 1942, and from there on September 1, 1942, to Raasiku in Estonia, where they were murdered. The transport, originally destined for Riga, arrived at its new destination on September 5. At the station, around 1,500 Jews were subjected to a “selection,” with those deemed fit for work separated from the others. The majority—most likely including the Löbl family of Wiener Neustadt—were brought by bus to the Jägala or Kalevi-Liivi sites on the Baltic coast, forced to undress, and executed. The family did not survive the Shoah.
Werner Sulzgruber