Rosalia Rosi Leicht, née Schlesinger

“About one week later, in July 1942, I was visiting my dear aunt one Wednesday evening. I had managed through unconventional means to procure some skim milk and brought it to her. On Friday afternoon I went again and an unfamiliar wom­ an opened the door. She said that my aunt had been picked up on Thurs­ day. Apparently, she had cried a lot. But then she had become very quiet.” Letter from Ilona Raab to Robert and Irma Leicht, Vienna, 23 July 1948

Rosalia Schlesinger was born in Lewa (Slovakia) on 17 January 1865 to Ignaz Schlesinger and Fani, née Skwarenina. At age 20, she married Albert Leicht, who would later become the head of the Jewish community organization in St. Pölten. Her only child, Robert, was born in Graz on 4 March 1887. That same year, the young family moved to St. Pölten and established a livelihood on the basis of a “modest retail store,” as Albert later wrote. The couple was soon able to buy the building at Kremser Gasse 33, on the corner to Brunngasse, and develop it into the “Kaufhaus Leicht,” a renowned department store with a tailor’s store, which ultimately employed 16 people. Rosalia was in charge of the accounts. As the head of the Jewish community organization, Albert Leicht was responsible for financing the new synagogue, a project he undertook with great commitment and success. Rosalia was also active in the community. Together with the women’s association, she organized numerous charity events,
such as a Pessach meal for 200 soldiers in April 1916. She surely approved her husband’s generous donations to various Jewish, Christian, and municipal institutions. She herself donated a bronze alms box worth 160 Crowns to the synagogue. The couple initially lived in the department store building at Kremsergasse 33, and from 1910 they lived with their son, his wife Irma, née Allina, and their three granddaughters Käthe, Lisl, and Lucy in a villa with a garden at Parkpromenade 14, near the train station.

As early as 16 April 1938, about a month after the “Anschluss,” the department store, which was co-owned equally by father and son, was “Aryanized”. The house at Parkpromenade 14 was also “Aryanized” by the municipal government in July, although the latter was forced by the Nazi regime to convert the building into a “Nazi nurses’ home.” Now homeless, Robert Leicht appealed to Gauleiter Dr. Hugo Jury, whereupon Robert’s parents were assigned an apartment at Linzerstraße 20 in a house belonging to the family of Jakob Kohn. Cash, savings, stocks, and private valuables were confiscated from Albert and Rosalia Leicht’s private property. A list compiled on 14 May 1940 by the Dorotheum auction house at Spiegelgasse 16 in Vienna’s first district also includes Rosalia’s jewelry, naming a few necklaces and diamond rings. The Leicht family had established its modest wealth through a lot of hard work and effort – within just a few months, it had all been taken from them by the Nazis. 

Albert Leicht did not live to be forcibly relocated to Vienna, for he died on 17 June 1939 and was thus still buried in the Jewish cemetery in St. Pölten. His modest little gravestone, erected under dire circumstances amidst persecution, does not reflect his great achievements for “his” Jewish community and the city. Not even three weeks after his death, on 3 July 1939, Rosalia was forced to relocate to a collective apartment at Körnergasse 7 in Vienna’s second district. Following his release from Dachau concentration camp, where he had been detained since 14 November 1938, her son also moved to Vienna with his wife Irma and daughter Elisabeth. They were able to flee to the USA just in time, on 2 April 1940. Their youngest daughter Lucy had already fled previously to Palestine/Eretz Israel, while Lucy’s sister Käthe had married and moved to Prague.

Rosalia’s niece Ilona Raab, née Schlesinger (born 1896), lived with her “Aryan” husband in a so-called “privileged mixed marriage,” which is presumably why she was able to regularly visit her “dear aunt” as well as Robert’s mother-in-law Trude Allina and supply them with provisions. She therefore personally witness­ ed the cramped circumstances they had to endure in the collective apartment at Körnergasse 7/12. Twenty people were sent to their deaths from this apartment alone, out of 135 altogether from this building. In her first letter to her cousin Robert following the war – she had spent three years searching for him – she wrote on 23 July 1948: “In the winter of 41/42, Aunt Rosi had to take in a roommate. She was a lovely old lady. Aunt Rosi had already previously sold the furniture, I think she said she received 400 Marks for this. Then things became cramped, but this probably didn’t bother her anymore, she was very patient.”

In this apartment, Ilona Raab also learned that Käthe, Robert and Irma’s daughter born in 1912, had been deported. “One day, when I was visiting again, my dear aunt showed me a letter. It was a farewell letter from your Kätherl. It still brings tears to my eyes today as I write these words to you. The letter was brought to Aunt Rosi by an intermediary. The girl was not able to write directly anymore. She told her grandmother that she now also had to leave and bade a sad farewell. I cannot remember the details exactly anymore, for I am also trying to forget about it lest it drives me mad.” Käthe, whose married name was Rennerová, was deported together with her husband Hans on 15 May 1942 from Prague via Theresienstadt to Lublin, where they were murdered.

On 28 July 1942, Rosalia was deported to Theresienstadt. She perished only three and a half months later, on 5 November 1942, due to the terrible living conditions, which were especially tortuous for elderly people. The restitution of the two buildings to Robert Leicht dragged on for years and, as the letters from their lawyers reveal, constituted a demeaning process for the damaged family. Only in 1954, one year after Robert’s death, was a settlement agreed with Irma and her daughter Lisl through the legal mediation of the lawyer Dr. Egon Morgenstern, who had returned from Palestine/Eretz Israel in 1947.