Memorial Book for the Victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna 1938

Max SCHWARZ, born on September 6^th, 1917 in Vienna/Austria (attested residency ('heimatberechtigt') as Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), youngest son of Marcus Hersch Schwarz (railway official) and Cili Schwarz, née Krumholz vel Fuehrer, lived in the municipal building "Herweghhof" in Vienna's 5^th district, Margaretenguertel 82/II/5. He had passed the high school leaving examination (Reifepruefing/Matura) in 1936 at Elisabethgymnasium in Vienna's 5^th district, Rainergasse 39, began to study medicine at the University of Vienna in the fall term of 1936/37 and was last enrolled at the Medical Faculty in the 2^nd year of his studies in the fall term of 1937/38 (fall term 1937/38 was validated on February 9^th, 1938) In 1938, after the National-Socialism takeover of power, he was forced to quit his studies for racist reasons and to leave the University of Vienna. Max Schwarz had to flee Vienna and was able to emigrate to Great Britain, living among other places in Kingston, Surrey, but was interned there on June 25, 1940 as an "enemy alien - refugee from Nazi oppression" (Kitchener Camp, Richborough, Sandwich, Kent), and was arrested. With about 2,600 interned German and Austrian refugees and prisoners of war, he was deported on July 10^th, 1940 from Liverpool/England on board the HMT SS "Dunera" under inhumane conditions to Sydney/Australia where they arrived in September 1940 and were interned again in camps around Tatura, Victoria and Hay, NSW (New South Wales).
Max Schwarz arrived at the camp near Hay on September 6^th, 1940, and in mid of May 1941 he was transferred to Camp 2 Tatura, Victoria. In 1942, like all other Jewish refugees, he was declared a "friendly alien" and in May 1943, he joined the Labor Battalion at Royal Park (8^th Australian Labor Company of the Australian Military Forces / 8^th Australian Employment Company) where he and his friend Ulrich Laufer then worked in road construction and unloading ship cargo at Port Melbourne and transporting goods between trains in the marshalling yards of the New South Wales / Victoria border towns of Albury and Tocumwal.
During local leave between Christmas and New Year's Day, Private Max Schwarz and Private Ulrich Laufer drowned when they tried to cool off from the Australian heat in the nearby Murray River, near Tocumwal, NSW/Australia on December 30^th, 1943. Both were buried at the Tocumwal General Cemetery NSW/Australia.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1937-1938; National Australian Archives (NAA)/MP1103/1 (POW/internee), NAA/MP1103/2 (internment report), NAA/B884 (service record); POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 472; information from Christine Kanzler and Elisabeth Lebensaft, Project "Dunera-Boys", Vienna 12/2015, and of Peter M. Allen, Australia 03/2021 & 10/2021, www.genteam.at, www.ancestry.de.

Herbert Posch