Puschek engl

Pottendorfer Straße 121 (laid 2011, renewed 2013 and 2015 due to damage)

Julius Puschek

“Protective custody”

Julius Puschek, born 7 May 1890 in Wiener Neustadt, married.
A few days before the outbreak of war, individuals listed in the so‑called A‑file were arrested — among them Julius Puschek. He died in the Buchenwald concentration camp on 10 November 1942.

Julius Puschek came from a working‑class family. The family last lived in a barracks settlement on Pottendorfer Straße near today’s Herz‑Mariä Church.

Puschek was an enthusiastic Communist. Unemployed and without benefits, he emigrated to Russia in 1932 with his wife Agnes and daughter Anna. Shortly afterward, his son Julius followed. After a little more than a year, Julius Puschek and his wife returned to Wiener Neustadt with health problems — disappointed by the reality of Stalinist Russia, which did not match his idealized vision of Communism.

Back home, Puschek continued to be politically active in public. He repeatedly spoke out boldly. His wife often tried to restrain him and warn him of the consequences — but in vain.

Puschek and many others who were considered potentially dangerous to the future Nazi regime had already been listed before 1938 in the so‑called A‑file, so they could be arrested quickly if needed. In Wiener Neustadt, the necessary information was provided by police officers who had been working in the police force before 1938 but were already illegally organized within the Nazi movement.

A few days before the outbreak of war, Berlin ordered the activation of the A‑file. This triggered a massive wave of arrests across the entire territory of “Greater Germany.” Among those arrested in the Wiener Neustadt area was the former Communist functionary Puschek. He was taken into “protective custody” by the Gestapo and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp — without any judicial verdict.

Julius Puschek died in Buchenwald on 10 November 1942.

His daughter and son remained in Russia in 1933 and worked there. Both were accused of espionage, arrested, and sentenced to forced labor. The son returned to Austria in 1947. The daughter and her son, born in 1951, were only able to return to Wiener Neustadt in 1955 as part of a humanitarian gesture during the signing of the Austrian State Treaty.

But Agnes Puschek, Julius’s wife, was also persecuted. She was conscripted to work at the Rax factory. She secretly helped the concentration camp prisoners working there by giving them small items. She was caught, arrested, interrogated at the Gestapo headquarters, and imprisoned for two months.

Anton Blaha, based on documents from the Industrial District Museum