Paul Zerner

Paul ZERNER (born on July 30^th, 1890 in Eibenschütz, Moravia/Austria-Hungary [Ivančice/Czech Republic]), had graduated at the Law School at the University of Vienna on July 20^th, 1916 with the academic degree "Dr. iur.".

He had served in the First World War in the k.u.k. Army as a lieutenant auditor and was the owner of the Zerner & Co. laundry in Vienna's 6^th district, Stumpergasse 42 and Bischko & Co. Decken-, Teppich- und Rosshaarwäscherei in Schwechat/Lower Austria, Schulplatz 8. He had left the Jewish Community in December 1916 and married Risa Fuchs (1890-1963), who had left the Jewish Community in December 1917, in Vienna on April 6^th, 1918. They lived in Vienna's 18^th district, Starkfriedgasse 9 and they had two daughters: Leonore (b. 1921) and Maria (b. 1925).

Under National Socialism, they were persecuted as Jews and had to flee Vienna, but were able to emigrate to England together in time. They lived in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, where he was able to work again as the manager of a laundry (Fray's Mill Laundry, Uxbridge). He was initially exempted from internment as an enemy alien on October 18^th, 1939, but was later interned and only released on September 16^th, 1940. On October 24^th, 1940, he and his family left Liverpool/England with the SS Eastern Prince for the USA, where they arrived in New York City, NY on November 5^th, 1940. He applied for U.S. citizenship in April 1941 - he was then living in Port Chester, NY, and working again in a dry cleaner's shop. He, his wife and his daughters were stripped of their German citizenship by the Third Reich on May 22^nd, 1941, and all their assets were expropriated.

As one of the legal consequences, he was also deprived of his academic degree by the University of Vienna on July 17^th, 1942 for racist reasons with the racist argument, that he as a Jew was not considered dignified an academic degree of a German university ("eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwürdig").

He died in August 1949 in Port Chester, Westchester, NY/USA and is buried at Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in Hartsdale, Westchester, NY.

It was not until 13 years after the deprivation a- and a very long time since the end of Nazism - that his doctorate was posthumously regranted on May 15^th, 1955, or rather the revocation was declared "null and void from the beginning".

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/graduation register ("Promotionsprotokoll") IUR 1915–1919 No 227, rectorate GZ 118 ex 1941/42, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 No 15; Deutscher Reichsanzeiger, No 119, May 24^th, 1941; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/E-uReang/FLD 13777 & FLD 13896, /Hilfsfonds/ Abgeltungsfonds 9848, /Hilfsfonds Sammelstellen A und B Negativ-Akten Handel und Gewerbe N 128, /VVSt VA 66534 & /VVSt Gew. 1767; Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna WStLA 1.3.2.119.A41 1619 Bezirk 6; POSCH 2009, 498; www.ancestry.de.

Herbert Posch