Anna Tieger, née Braun

“Been widowed for 7 years, all alone, don’t have a pension or other support, my husband participated in the entire campaign, wore the Silver Merit Cross with the Crown on the ribbon of his Medal for Bravery, and was always ill after his return from the field and died on 14 February 1931. I too am sickly and also have to care for my old father of 85 years, A. Braun, in Vienna’s second district, Zirkusgasse No. 5, having to support his subsistence.” (Notification of amend­ ment submitted by Anna Tieger to the Vienna Property Transaction Office, St. Pölten, 3. 1. 1939) Anna Tieger was born on 16 November 1880 in Boskowitz/Boskovice (Moravia) to Alois and Johanna, née Adler. It is unknown when she married Moritz Tieger, a highly decorated veteran of World War One from Spitz/Donau, nor is it known whether she was already widowed when she moved to St. Pölten. Perhaps it was easier for her after the death of her husband to live in the hometown of her brother-in-law Sigmund Tieger and his family, for although Anna had five siblings, she had no children. Despite being widowed and without her own income, Anna Tieger was not poor. The “Jewish Property Register” she filled out on 15 July 1938 indicates bank deposits of around 4000 Reichsmark (RM) as well as 3067 RM that she had lent to her brother Otto Braun. In the first “notification of amendment” to this register, which she submitted on 10 December 1938, she tried to have this debt removed from her declaration of wealth. This debt was “to be regarded as entirely irrecoverable and thus completely lost to me”, since her brother, a den- tal technician, had lost all of his customers following the “Anschluss” and hardly had any income remaining. She thus not only supported her elderly father but also her brother, now impoverished due to Nazi legislation. On 14 November 1938, she had liquidated her savings in Vienna and withdrawn the cash: “I mention this because I was not able to come to Vienna due to illness and the events occurring before 12 November.” Anna Tieger was here obviously referring to the November Pogroms. Following the deduction of various expenditures for her brother and father and the repayment of her own debts, she was left with 332 RM. With astute prudence, Anna Tieger had already had her valuables appraised by a court-certified assessor in July and appended his findings to the property register. These valuables included a man’s watch and man’s necklace – evident- ly mementos from her deceased husband – along with two silver “Alt Wien” candlesticks and jewelry. This brought the total value of her assets to 2079 RM. A second assessment by the “gold worker” Alois Bäcker in St. Pölten arrived at a value of 1613 RM, so 22 percent less than the first assessment. Anna Tieger informed the Property Transaction Office of this reduction in her assets in a second “amendment” submitted on 3 January 1939, in which she also recounted her hardships, as cited above. At this point in time, she had already vacated her apartment and had to move in at Kremser Landstraße 57. This was the address of the warehouse of Julius Körner, a St. Pölten-based businessman and board member of the Jewish community organization. Josef Rosenstingl and the Briefwechsler family had also found emergency refuge there before their forced relocation to Vienna. On 2 May 1939, Anna Tieger relocated to Franz Hochedlingergasse 10 in Vien- na’s second district, from where altogether 78 people would be deported to their deaths. The following day, she sold her valuables at the Dorotheum auc- tion house in Spiegelgasse 16 in Vienna’s first district for only 67 percent of the value stipulated in the second assessment. Whether she actually received the proceeds or, as mostly occurred with the forced sales at the Dorotheum, these were transferred into a frozen account, cannot be proven, but the latter is likely. On 5 June 1942, Anna Tieger was deported to Izbica (Lublin District, Poland). The population of this small town of about 6000 people was to 90 percent Jew- ish. This figure doubled as a result of the deportations. Most of these people were murdered in the gas chambers of the Belzec extermination camp. None of the 4000 people deported from Austria to Izbica survived. Anna’s brother Otto Braun was able to flee to London and finally to New York, probably thanks to her financial assistance. A Stone of Remembrance is also being placed this year for her brother-in-law Sigmund Tieger and his daughter Herta.