Josef Kesselbrenner
| Born: |
06-14-1908 |
| Faculty: |
Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: |
Expelled student |
Josef KESSELBRENNER, born on June 14
th, 1908 in Husiatyn, Galicia/Austro-Hungarian Empire [s. 1919: Poland, s. 1945: Гусятин/Ukraine], (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), son of Baruch Kesselbrenner (clockmaker, 1880-1941) and his wife Sara, née Ashkenasy false Valakh/Wallach (1878-1942), lived in Vienna 2
nd district, Darwingasse 5/4 since June 1932.
He had graduated in 1928 at the Chajes-Realgymnasium in Vienna's 2
nd and had subsequently started tu study medicine at the University of Vienna. He was enrolled finally in the spring term 1938 at the Medical School in the 4
th year of his studies.
He had become victim of the numerous violent attacks in the 1930s long before the takeover of power by the National-Socialists in 1938. One of the violent raids (October 17
th, 1932), in his third year of medical studies, he made a protocol (with the support of law professor Josef Hupka) for the rectorate, but rector Prof. Othenio Abel, even National-Socialist, saw no reason for action.
That day Josef Kesselbrenner experienced the following, when leaving the university library - the library staircase ended directly in the corner of the arcaded courtyard at the time - around 10 clock:
"
In the arcade, I met a troop of 40 to 50 national-Socialist students with swastikas, and the two leaders of the squad asked me and my colleague to legitimize ourselves, to my question: 'Why, with what right do you demand that?' I got no answer. I was separated from my colleague, and at the same moment the horde, armed with steel rods, blackjacks, rubber jacks, iron bangs, sticks, et al., lunged at me, and I was alternately beaten by each of the 'heroes'. My cries for help were answered with 'Der Jud g'hoert erstochen! (stabbed). No consideration with him! Revenge for Simmering!'
I ran to the monument in the middle of the courtyard [Ann. HP: Kastalia, fountain figure of the nymph of wisdom]
and came down to the case there, during which case my right shoe was torn off my foot, and when I was lying on the ground, I was literally trampled to death, the 'heroes' stepped on my chest, but I managed to get up and escape to the arcade, the horde pursued me and in the arcade I received a terrific slap in the right eye with a brass knucklebone Fist a blow to the left eye, a blow to the upper lip and one against the nose. A swastika student, which ran towards me, hit with all my might with a knife-like instrument (it consisted of a handle and a plate flattened at right angles to the handle) on mine I could scarcely stand up bleeding from numerous wounds and stumbled through the arcade, beaten incessantly.
A few steps ahead of me, I saw a student (Rosa Weiss [...]) and I screamed at her 'Please, save me!'. She protected me by standing in front of me and shouting to the gang, 'Will you kill him completely?!' The people left me and we fled to the nearby buffet. After a while, a swastika student in uniform approached me and offered to take me out through a backward exit. I replied that I was now unable to follow him as he wished. But he explained: 'Although you are injured, you will have to follow me now, otherwise I can not take responsibility for everything else. So I had to follow him, with only one shoe, next to me Miss Weiss and behind me as backing a second national socialist student with a swastika badge. On the way through various corridors we had to stop more often because of close noise, but finally we came to a back door, which the guide opened. Before that he had told us: 'Remember: if a S.A. man walks in front of you, nothing can ever happen to you.
A few swastika students stood in front of the door in Reichsratstrasse. Our leader raised his hand and shouted to them: 'Comrades, it does not matter anymore, he has already had it!' The people laughed - my appearance bleeding and with an unclothed foot evidently seemed especially funny to these 'cultural people'.
On the street I asked two police guards standing there, to call for a car, since I have no strength left to go. At first they did not react at all, then after a while one of them said that I should get a car myself. Me and my companion, who did not leave me even though she herself was fainting, now stopped a lorry whose leader was willing to take us along and brought us to the emergency room of the I. surgeon's University Clinic. There, my two contused lacerations ("Rissquetsch-Wunden") on the skull were sewn and I received a tetanus injection. Then we went to the clinic Meller. [Ann. HP: Univ. Ophtalmological Clinic in the Old General Hospital, "AKH")], where my injured eye was examined."
Josef Kesselbrenner was bedridden for two weeks due to the injuries caused by the beating, had hip bruises and bruises on the arms, calves and knees and had to go to the eye clinic several times to treat the injured eye, suffered from blurred vision and migraine-like headaches for weeks.
Despite this study experience he tried to continue his studies at the University of Vienna and enrolled despite the severe health problems for five more years but hardly progressed in his studying, with numerous sick leave, the semester was not validated and he did not come long for the fifth eligible semester out. Thus, in the spring term of 1938, after the "Anschluss" he was officially only in the 7
th qualifying semester when he was now forced to completely abort his study for racist reasons, and to leave the university.
His younger brother Israel Kesselbrenner (b. July 12
th, 1909 in Vienna, d. November 27
th, 1997 in Livingston, Essex County, NJ/USA), who had begun a year after Josef with his own medical studies at the University of Vienna, could complete his medical studies and only three months before "Anschluss", on November 12
th, 1937, he graduated and gained his "Dr. med." in Vienna. Israel Kesselbrenner also went on with his psychoanalysis training in Vienna in addition to his medical studies. After emigrating to the USA, he became a psychiatrist in a New York hospital and a psychoanalyst / therapist with practice in Yorkville. He was a longtime director of the Manhattan State Hospital and a clinical professor at Columbia Medical School. With his wife Ida he had two sons (cardiologist Dr. Michael Kesselbrenner, 1950-2017, and Dan) and seven grandchildren.
Josef Kesselbrenner himself was able to flee Vienna after the "Anschluss" and emigrated from Vienna to Luxembourg on July 21st, 1938, where he lived for two years and then moved on to Brussels / Belgium. In Yad Vashem, his name
can be found on a list of deported Jews from Luxembourg, but he himself does not report any deportation in his 1962 application for compensation. In Belgium, he had from 1942 to 1944 bear the discriminating yellow Star of David, but could survive. He was married to Else Keelbrenner and it was not until after the end of the war that he emigrated to the United States on January 20
th, 1950 and they lived in New York (first in 2*12 Broadway Terrace and from May 1957 on in 60, Park Terrace West # A61). His claim for compensation because of the need to carry the Jewish star was decided in 1963 positive and he got a compensation.
The mother of Josef and Israel, Sara Kesselbrenner (b. December 8
th, 1878 in Husyatin, Galicia/Austro-Hungarian Empire) was deported on August 17
th, 1942 from her apartment in Vienna 2
nd district, Darwingasse 5, to Maly Trostinec/Belarus, where she was murdered four days later.
Lit.: Vienna University Archive /enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1928-1938, graduation registry ('Promotionsprotokoll') MED XIII Nr. 3610 [Israel Kesselbrenner], rectorate GZ 199 ex 1932/33, GZ 392 ex 1932/33; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 415; Linda ERKER, "Jetzt weiss ich ganz, was das 'Dritte Reich' bedeutet – die Herrschaft schrankenloser, feiger Brutalitaet." Eine Momentaufnahme der Universitaet Wien im Oktober 1932, in: Lucile Dreidemy u.a., Hg., Bananen, Cola, Zeitgeschichte: Oliver Rathkolb und das lange 20. Jahrhundert, Vienna/Cologne/Weimar 2015, 177–190, 181f.; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2022; information from Mag. Bernhard Hammer, Vienna 05/2015 and from Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 08/2019; Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW): Austrian Victims of the Holocaust [Sara Kesselbrenner]; Yad Vashem Victims-Database.
Herbert Posch
