Domplatz 12 (laid 2014)
Josefine Seinfeld
No Chance to Survive as a Jew
Josefine Seinfeld was born on January 25, 1898, in Wiener Neustadt. She was unmarried and of the Jewish faith (Mosaic). She was murdered on March 13, 1941, in Hartheim.
Josefine lived with her brother Siegfried (born 1914), sister Olga (born 1910), and their mother Amalie in the family apartment at Domplatz 12.
From the sparse surviving documents, it is known that the Wiener Neustadt health office applied on July 18, 1931, for Josefine’s admission to the Mauer-Öhling nursing home. She was admitted on July 20, 1931, and released back home on October 24, 1931, on her own recognizance.
However, on August 19, 1932, again on the order of the health office, Josefine was readmitted to the institution. Beyond entries in the civil registry books for these stays, no further records exist.
It is certain that with the Anschluss—the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany—Josefine had no chance to survive. The diagnosis of “Jew” alone was enough to condemn her.
An exit note in the medical registry book bears the stamp: “On March 13, 1941, transferred to an institution not named by the administration”—a euphemism for her deportation to Hartheim, where she was murdered with carbon monoxide gas along with 15 other patients from Mauer-Öhling.
The fate of the other family members: Father Max died in 1936, Sister Olga was murdered in Auschwitz (Stolperstein at Singergasse 15), Brother Siegfried, a student, was imprisoned twice in Buchenwald concentration camp—from September 25 to December 17, 1938, and again from September 22, 1939, to August 3, 1940—and survived, Mother Amalie was forced to leave Wiener Neustadt during the November Pogroms (Kristallnacht).
Anton Blaha