Fischauergasse 17 (laid 2014)
The Suranyi family
From France to Auschwitz
Stefan [Stephan] Suranyi, born on 9 June 1895 in Szarvas, Hungary.
Wife Valerie “Vally,” née Grosz, born on 25 September 1897 in Vienna.
Daughter Susanne [Trude Susanne], born on 12 April 1925 in Baden.
The family was able to leave for France, was interned in Drancy, deported to Auschwitz, and murdered there.
Stefan Suranyi came to the city in 1931 as a traveling salesman with his family from Vienna and rented a room at Rudolf-Hawel-Gasse 28 in July 1931. Professionally, he worked as a tripe cleaner. In 1933 the family of three moved to Fischa-Ufer 15 and then, at the end of February 1936, to Raugasse 4.
Daughter Susanne attended the Protestant primary school and later the “Public Secondary School for Girls in Wiener Neustadt.”
Stefan Suranyi was trained as a butcher. Together with his partner Otto Schneider, he ran a tripe-cleaning business under the name “Suranyi & Schneider” at the Wiener Neustadt slaughterhouse. They traded in intestines and smoking-supplies. Just a few days after the “Anschluss” in 1938, on 17 March 1938, Suranyi had to hand over the business to his “Aryan” partner alone.
In the summer of 1938 the family was forced to leave their home and had to find other accommodation. Since non-Jewish landlords and property owners hardly accepted Jews as subtenants anymore — or refused them housing altogether — the family finally found shelter in early August 1938 with the Jewish woman Rosa Wilder in Fischauergasse 17.
The family remained in the city until November 1938 and, like so many other Jews who experienced Kristallnacht, was completely shocked by the event.
The family lived on assistance from the Vienna Jewish Community and was able to occupy a room for some time at Josefinengasse 4/8 in Vienna.
A problem for the father was that he was stateless. This made departure very difficult, if not nearly impossible, because the responsible Nazi authorities would not issue him a passport. In May 1939 Stefan Suranyi applied for permission to emigrate to France. In the summer of 1939 the family did in fact reach Paris. But after the outbreak of the Second World War, the situation for Jewish refugees in France changed drastically. The family of three was imprisoned and deported from Drancy — a notorious large transit camp north of Paris — to Auschwitz: Valerie and daughter Susanne together on 7 December 1943, and father Stefan months later on 30 May 1944. All were murdered.
Werner Sulzgruber