Julius Augapfel

Born:	04-19-1892
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:

Julius AUGAPFEL (born on April 19^th, 1892 in Jaroslau, Galicia/Austria-Hungarian Empire [Jaroslaw/Poland], died on October 1^st, 1944 in Auschwitz concentration camp [Oswiecim/Poland]), had received the degree of Dr. phil. in Oriental Studies from the Philosophical School of the University of Vienna on June 10^th, 1914 and the degree of Dr. iur. on May 12^th, 1919 Born in Galicia as the son of the merchant Mayer (Maier) Augapfel (1865-1932) and raised in Vienna, Julius Augapfel passed the school-leaving examination (Matura) at the Gymnasium in Vienna's 2^nd district in 1910 and studied history and oriental studies at the University of Vienna from 1910, as well as at the Vienna Israelitisch-Theologische Lehranstalt. He received his doctorate in Oriental Studies (dissertation: Babylonian legal documents from the reign of Darius II) in 1914 (Dr. phil./PhD) and became rabbi in Salzburg in 1914. During World War I he worked as a field rabbi, but also studied Law at the University of Vienna from 1915 and received his second doctorate in 1919 (Dr. iur/Dr LL). In 1919 DDr. Julius Augapfel married Rosa Zuckermann (1895-1967) in Vienna, and initially worked as an unpaid librarian at the Oriental Institute of the University of Vienna, but was unable to find a suitable paid position in Vienna, which is why he, among other things from 1926, accepted the position of rabbi and religious teacher of the Jewish community in Insterbug, East Prussia [Chernyakhovsk|Черняховск/Russia], where he also established and led a Zionist group and also became a member of the General German Rabbinical Association as well as the Northeast German Rabbinical Association, first as deputy chairman and later as chairman.
His multiple attempts to obtain a rabbinical position in Vienna in the 1930s did not succeed in 1931/32 when David Feuchtwang or Israel Taglicht left their positions, nor in 1933 when the rabbinical position at Temple Vienna's 15^th district, Turnergasse became vacant. After the National Socialists seized power in the German Reich in 1933, state subsidies were discontinued and Augapfel was dismissed as rabbi in Insterburg due to lack of funds; an application for a rabbinate position in Erfurt also failed in 1936. Despite intensive support from friends in the U.S., which included issuing affidavits, arranging employment as rabbi of Progressive Congregation Anshe Poilin in Coney Island, he was unable to leave the country, as the U. S. consulate in Berlin refused to issue a visa in March 1939, and he eventually fled to the Netherlands with his wife. Thereupon, however, they were both deprived of their German citizenship by the Third Reich on November 3^rd, 1939. In addition to statelessness, this entailed the expropriation of all property for the benefit of the Third Reich and the loss of all academic degrees. On July 8^th, 1940, he was deprived of both doctoral degrees by the University of Vienna on racist grounds, as he was considered "unworthy of an academic degree from a German university as a Jew" ("eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwuerdig") by the National Socialists.

After the German occupation of the Netherlands, Belgium and France in 1940, he was arrested and interned for four years in the Westerbork concentration camp in the Netherlands, where he acted as a chaplain for those who were deported from here to be murdered in the other concentration and extermination camps. On September 6, 1944, he himself was deported from there to Theresienstadt [Terezín/Czech Republic] and on September 29, 1944, from there on to the German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz [Oswiecim/Poland]. Julius Augapfel was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp on October 1^st, 1944. Only 15 years after the deprivation and 11 years after his murder - and long after the end of National Socialism - were his doctorates posthumously restored on May 15^th, 1955, or the deprivation declared "null and void from the beginning".

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/graduation register ("Promotionsprotokoll") PHIL 1913–1922 No. 81, IUR 1915–1919 No. 930, final examinatiuon registry and file ("Rigorosenakt und -protokoll") PHIL 3880, rectorate GZ 856 ex 1939/40, GZ 1018 ex 1939/40/41, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 ONr. 15; Deutscher Reichsanzeiger No. 258, November 3, 1939; Joseph WALK, Kurzbiographien zur Geschichte der Juden 1918–1945, Munich 1988, 15; Horst GOEPPINGER, Juristen juedischer Abstammung im "Dritten Reich", 2. Aufl. 1990, 238; POSCH 2009, 205f., 388; Evelyn ADUNKA, Julius Augapfel, in: Österreichisches Biografisches Lexikon, 2015; Joods Monument, 2017.

Herbert Posch