| Born: | 04-22-1904 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Artur (Arthur) LOURIÉ, born on April 22nd, 1904 in Pinsk/Poland [Belarus] (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Pinsk/Poland [Belarus], citizenship 1939: Poland), son of Dr. Alexander Lourié (1861 Pinsk-1924 Berlin, manufacturer) and Natalie Lourié, née Wahl from Königsberg [Kaliningrad]. He lived with his family in Vienna's 19th district, Nedergasse 21, later nearby in Vienna's 19th district, Vegagasse 21. Artur Lourié enrolled at the University of Vienna after high school graduation from 1924/25 with interruptions until fall term of 1927/28 and, after a longer interruption between 1928 and 1935, re-enrolled in fall term of 1935/36 and was last enrolled in the spring term of 1938 at the Philosophical School in the 6th year of his studies and took courses primarily in botany (with Fritz Knoll) and prehistory (with Oswald Menghin).
He gave German as his mother tongue and Polish, later also German, as his ethnicity. The Lourié family probably moved to Vienna in his early childhood.
Under National Socialism, he was forced to abandon his studies and leave the University of Vienna after the Anschluss for racist reasons.
Artur Lourié had married Marianne Rosa Weiß (1911-1960), later a lawyer from Budapest/Hungary and daughter of a well-known master builder and civil engineer, in the synagogue in Vienna's Währing district in 1932. Their daughter Suzanna Elisabeth (Ezzy, 1933-2008) was born in Vienna on March 11th, 1933 and their daughter Brigitta Dorothea (Fisher) on June 30th, 1936.
Artur Lourié worked as an industrialist in the family business Lourié & Co, which had been founded by his father Alexander and his uncle Leopold Lourié (1859 Pinsk-1938 London) in Vienna in 1899, the first mechanical plywood processing factory in Austria.
The company with the factory in Vienna's 10th district, Bernhardstalgasse 36 (built in 1910 by Arch. Ludwig Schwanberg and Wilhelm Klingenberg jr.) was expropriated ("aryanized") in 1938 by SS-Oberstandartenführer Eduard Pötzl and continued as "Pölzl u. Weigensamer Holzwerke". Artur and his wife have also been art collectors but when they had to flee in 1938 they did not receive an export license so some valueable parta were also expropriated ("seized") and taken over by the Central Office for the Protection of Monuments.
The Lourié family had to flee Vienna and managed to emigrate to London in time in July 1938. In addition to Arthur and Marianne Lourie, these were his mother Nathalie Lourie, his parents-in-law and their children, his brother Martin and his sister Paula Strauß, née Lourié with her husband Jules Straus.The majority of the family soon emigrated to Canada, where they hoped to regain a foothold in the timber business. Arthur Lourié remained in Great Britain for the time being in order to take care of the international sales office of the expropriated family business in Vienna. He wanted to join Canada in early September 1939 and set sail from Liverpool on September 3rd, 1939 on board the SS Athenia for Montreal/Canada, the last passenger ship to leave Europe after the start of the Second World War. On the same day, Great Britain had declared war on Germany due to the German invasion of Poland.
However, the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-30 about 250 nautical miles off the northwest coast of Ireland on the night of September 3rd to 4th, 1939.Of the approximately 1,100 people on board, 118 died, many of them civilians.
Artur Lourié died in the Atlantic on September 4th, 1939 at the age of 35.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") PHIL 1937-1938; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/EuRang /VVSt/VA 2986 (Leopold Lourié), 28502 (Leopold Lourié), 9508 (Anton Lourié); Anton LOURIÈ, Die Familie Lourié (Luria), Vienna 1923; Sophie LILLIE, Was einmal war. Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens, Vienna 2003, 706-711; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 432; https://www.proveana.de/de/person/lourie-arthur; Industrie-Compass Österreich 1925/26, p. 1249; family-movie 1929 (uncle Leopold, Lourié factory, 70th anniversary) in the USHMM.
Herbert Posch & Isabella Schneider
