Otto Wolken

Born:	04-27-1903
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Otto WOLKEN (born on April 27th, 1903 in Vienna), was the son of Jewish emigrés from Lemberg. He had graduated at the Medical School at the University of Vienna  on February 6th, 1931 with the academic degree 'Dr. med.'. After graduating, he worked as a doctor in Vienna and Lower Austria (St. Pölten and Traisen) and engaged for the Social Democratic Party of Austria, e.g. in the 'Schutzbund'. In March 1938 - shortly after the 'Anschluss' of Austria - Otto Wolken was arrested and detained for the subsequent years in various prisons and camps, including two years in Zweibrücken, a satellite camp of the SS special concentration camp Hinzert. In 1940 he was deprived of his academic degree because of his political opinion. On July 9th, 1943, Wolken was deported to the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau (prisoner number 128828). During the selection of the incoming prisoners a SS-man from Linz saved him from the immediate gasification:
"Ich war bei der Selektion (der Zugänge), ich war schon durch die Daumenbewegung des SS-Arztes auf die Seite gestellt worden, wo die standen, die sofort vergast werden sollten. Da trat ein SS-Mann auf mich zu, er hatte mich sprechen gehört. 'Woher bist du?' – 'Aus Wien', sagte ich. 'Also ein Landsmann, ich bin nämlich aus Linz. Was bist du von Beruf?' – 'Arzt.' Der Mann versprach, mich herauszuholen, und holte mich heraus." (statement by Otto Wolkens, cited from: LANGBEIN 1980, 614). Otto Wolken died on February 1st, 1975 in Vienna. It took 68 years since the deprivation - and a very long time since the end of Nazism - until the regranting of the doctorate took finally place in 2008.

Lit.: Edith KIRSCH, Dr. Otto Wolken – selbstloser Helfer in Auschwitz; in: Der Sozialdemokratische Kämpfer 1-3 (2005), 12; Hermann LANGBEIN, Menschen in Auschwitz; Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Wien 1980, 185, 304-313, 327, 352, 614; Ernst KLEE, Auschwitz. Täter, Gehilfen und Opfer und was aus ihnen wurde. Ein Personenlexikon, Frankfurt am Main 2013, 443; Otto WOLKEN, Die Befreiung von Auschwitz-Birkenau; in: Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, Hg., Die Auschwitz-Hefte, Band 2, Hamburg 1994, 261-265 (sowie Biografie S. 284); Nachruf, in: Arbeiter-Zeitung, 9.2.1975; Der Auschwitz Prozess: Otto Wolken incl. audio-recording of his statement on 27.2.1964.

Katharina Kniefacz