“Don’t forget about self-help” the fight for disability rights in Austria in the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

As an organiser of self-help groups and a political activist, Austrian-Czech Jew Siegfried Braun (1893-1944) co-founded the early social movement oriented towards emancipation and internationality of persons with disabilities in Austria. In the 1920s, he co-founded the First Austrian Cripple Working Group, a self-help organisation. The aim of Braun and his colleagues was to move away from being considered objects of charity – a role imposed by the Austrian welfare policy. The organisation did not only demand compliance with contemporary equal and human rights but also actively organised peer counselling, representation, and regular employment in their own businesses. In the 1930s, Braun maintained an active and reflexive role despite the economically and politically difficult times leading to National Socialism. After 1938, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto (today Terezín Memorial), where he organised educational programmes as a form of resistance, before he was murdered in Auschwitz.

Points of Interest

• This article is about the life of Siegfried Braun.

• He was a disability rights activist, and he used a wheelchair.

• He was born in Moravia in 1893.

• Siegfried Braun co-founded the First Austrian Cripple Working Group in 1926.

• He was an advocate for ‘independent living’ and ‘work not pity’.

• In 1943, the Nazis deported Braun to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto because he was Jewish.

• In the concentration camp and ghetto, he organised resistance lectures and helped other persons.

• He was murdered in Auschwitz in the autumn of 1944.

Keywords:

• disability history
• independent living
• disability rights movement
• Holocaust

Disability history within the scope of disability studies with a political-emancipatory purpose

In addition to mainstream historiography, one key task of Disability History is the research of the diverse, complex but also hidden, often even forgotten and hardly reconstructible stories of disability, such as personal stories of agents of the disability movement in historical contexts. Since the 1970s, the disability rights movement has grown in Austria, as in many other countries. But still, hardly anything is known about the first self-advocacy organisation of persons with disabilities – neither about its protagonists nor about them being victims in the Holocaust.

Literary research revealed very few Disability History studies of advocates for disability rights, organisers of self-help or political activists in the early 20^th century in the US (Quicke 1988; Longmore and Goldberger 2000; Longmore 2003; Holland 2006). When historians write about disability in Austria or Germany in the first half of the 20^th century, they focus on the history of eugenics, the Nazi mass murdering of persons with disabilities, disabled veterans or special care institutions (Poore 2006, 38). There is only one comprehensive analysis by Petra Fuchs and the biographic portrayal of three activists with regard to the German Selbsthilfebund der Körperbehinderten (S.B.K., Self-Help Alliance of the Physically Handicapped) 1919-1931 and its successor the Reichsbund der Körperbehinderten (German National Association of the Physically Disabled) 1931–1933 (Fuchs 1999a, 1999b, 1999c, 1999d). Up until now, only little is known about the early advocates of Austrian self-help of persons with disabilities or the involvement of persons with disabilities in the resistance against Nazism. This article focuses on the life and achievements of (Max) Siegfried (in Czech: Vítězslav) Braun (born in 1893 and murdered in 1944). He used a wheelchair and required personal assistance in everyday life and was one of the most important initiators of the Erste österreichische Krüppelarbeitsgemeinschaft (First Austrian Cripple Working Group).

Longmore explains that disability experiences are mostly presented through the eyes of nondisabled people and that these disability experiences only describe what nondisabled people have done for people with disabilities. “As a result, disabled people are hidden or depicted passive and inert” (Longmore 2003, 9). Our research process was deeply influenced by the interdisciplinary field of Disability Studies and the need to define individual and collective experiences as well as structural circumstances (Meade and Serlin 2006, 4-5). Beyond general discourse and power analyses, this is about the contexts which Longmore (2003, 9), as a historian and US disability rights activist, calls ‘usable pasts’:

“The contemporary disability rights campaigns are, of course, embedded in historical processes. [….] Some historians talk about constructing ‘usable pasts’. I take that to mean the fashioning of historical explanations that can aid us in understanding our own present so that we can build a future that will be different, which is to say, more just than it would otherwise probably become. The explicit effort to forge a usable past is commonly and unsurprisingly an agenda of scholars who write the histories of currently marginalized groups. They hope to mold historical tools outsiders can use to shape contemporary change. “

We strongly adhere to those principles in our research approach. By telling the story of Siegfried Braun, we will show how critically early disability rights movement activists analysed the structural circumstances and discriminatory regulations in a political way, and how active individuals tried to represent the interests of physically disabled persons. Even while he was in the Nazi concentration camp and ghetto, the disability rights activist Siegfried Braun helped others, analysed the structural circumstances, and assumed an active role in the educational programme of the resistance.

Braun had a certain media presence in Austrian newspapers in the 1920s, and he wrote many articles for the Austrian magazine Der Krüppel (The Cripple), which was almost always published monthly between 1927 and 1938. In our research, we strongly draw on media articles written by Siegfried Braun and some diary entries written when he was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto; his diary entries are presented here for the first time ever. Siegfried Braun chronicled experiences and thoughts in his diary; some entries are preserved up until today. We found the document in the database for documentary material of the Terezín Memorial (Database of the Collection in the Department of Documentation of the Terezín Memorial). It consists of three pages on square paper and is handwritten in ink pencil in the Czech language. The document is a copy made in 1944 by Jiří Borský, a fellow prisoner who survived the Holocaust, and it consists of six diary entries from January 20, April 7, May 12-13, May 17, May 22, and June 7, 1944. We had the document translated from Czech into German, and the parts used in this article were then translated from German into English. All German quotes and major text parts were translated into English with the support of a professional translator and checked by us.

In this biographical research paper, we firstly reconstruct Siegfried Braun’s childhood and youth (section 2), then focus on his organisational and advocacy work on different levels as well as his experiences of disability in the 1920s and 1930s (section 3). Subsequently, we reconstruct his life in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto and his mode of critically analysing the social order in Theresienstadt (section 4). In the last section, we consider Siegfried Braun’s legacy for the historiography as well as for the independent living and disability rights movement. In the conclusion, we show some gaps in research that should be addressed in the future.

Siegfried Braun: His childhood and youth

Siegfried Braun was born on December 28, 1893 in the small town Mohelnice (German: Müglitz) in Moravia into a Jewish and German speaking family. In a 1890 census, only a minority in this town indicated that they spoke mainly Czech at home (2.3% or 100 out of 4,391 inhabitants). 151 persons belonged to the Jewish minority (3.4%) (K. K. Statistische Central-Commission 1893, 60; see also Meyer 1905, 212). During that time, about 2% of the Moravian population was Jewish (Austrian Statistics 1892, 78). Not being very religious, speaking German at home and belonging to the (well-off) middle class was not anything extraordinary among the Jewish minority in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia) at the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. So maybe this was the case with the Braun family (Srubar 2001, 14-17).

A newspaper article with the title Beim Apostel der Invaliden (At the apostle of the invalids) from 1929 states that Siegfried’s father was a businessman; Siegfried was attending grammar school in nearby Olomouc when he fell ill at the age of 12 and suffered from painful joint inflammations for months. It was difficult to establish a diagnosis for the sick adolescent, and the subsequent therapies were lengthy. Braun’s parents consulted a number of doctors and when their son “was ‘healthy’ again, his hands, feet, and body were crippled, and his arms were stiff” (Neues Wiener Journal, July 3, 1929, 7). The medical expenses could have meant an extremely high financial strain on his parents at that time as there was no health insurance for self-employed persons back then. Siegfried Braun required assistance in his everyday life; he moved around in a ‘cart’ or wheelchair. The journalist of the article also wrote that even as a teenager and young adult Braun “did not give up. He studied, read, and worked on himself until he realised that nobody was too weak to help the ones who were even weaker.” (Neues Wiener Journal, July 3, 1929, 7) This mass media recognition of an image of the weak helping the weak is coined by a moral/religious model of disability (Goodley 2017, 7). Contrary to this, Braun focussed on being active, fighting back and demanding rights. One of the challenges was stigma management and the resistance of social attributions through self-help (Goffman 1970). Siegfried Braun was emancipated, self-confident and educationally inclined.

Request for political-emancipatory self-help

When Siegfried Braun was 20 years old, he moved from Moravia to Vienna, expecting help from the then modern social-medical institutions of the Monarchy’s capital. However, he was quickly disappointed in Vienna; instead of receiving the support for an independent life he had hoped for, he was referred to the nursing home for elderly and sick people. This led to his idea – namely, the foundation of an organisation for political-emancipatory self-help – receiving more impetus. In an article with the title Vergeßt nicht die Selbsthilfe (Don’t forget about self-help) in the magazine Der Krüppel he described this time as follows:

In 1913, I moved from Olomouc to Vienna hoping that at least a fraction of the great promises made by chief physician Dr Kienast, the head of the then Krüppelfürsorgeverein [Association for the Care of Cripples] ‘Leopoldineum’, and by the famous orthopaedic specialist Prof. Lorenz, the head of the University Clinic, would become reality. But from both sides I received the words that like the Sword of Damocles always hang over the heads of those of us heavy cripples who are poor and have no relatives who, in their own renunciation, assume the heavy burden that ought to be the duty of the state and society. ‘It is best to go to the home for sick people.’ – That was the last advice doctors could give a 22-year-old. I was in despair. I told myself: ‘Alright, I might as well go to the home for sick people, but before I do that I am going to build a place so the other cripples do not have to search for years, and to make sure they receive help and possibilities on time.’ (Der Krüppel, September–October, 1934, 38)

Siegfried Braun lived in the nursing home of Lainz (a neighbourhood in Vienna) – but not for long, because he concluded: “Since then, I have basically been against putting a young cripple in a home for the sick.” (Der Krüppel, September-October, 1934, 38) Criticism of institutionalisation became a crucial starting point for the emerging self-help with an emancipatory orientation. Historically, this seems to be a significant initial point for the role of disabled people in the fight against institutional disciplinary power (Foucault 1989).

Around 1915, Braun began to work on establishing an information and advice centre for physically disabled persons (Der Krüppel, September–October, 1934, 37–39). At first this was unsuccessful, however, in 1919, he had already recruited 100 supporting members for the foundation of the organisation. In talks at culture and social associations in Vienna, he promoted his idea of the foundation, remembering retrospectively:

The cripples of Austria should organise themselves and advocate their right to live and work. We cripples don’t want any homes for the sick and poor relief but, where and whenever possible, we want to be seen as human beings and be connected to other humans through work. (Der Krüppel, September-October, 1934, 38)

The Austrian Selbsthilfebund der Körperbehinderten (Self-Help Alliance of the Physically Handicapped) was the first association of persons with disabilities in Austria. A newspaper report from 1925 states that Braun organised meetings of people with disabilities in the Vienna Prater park. Among other things, the participants were asked about their abilities with regard to employment. Many of those present were housed in nursing homes, struggled against prejudices of not being able to work, or rejected the gifts of “private charity and unproductive public care” (Neues Wiener Journal, February 6, 1925, 7 and 8). Braun and his allies were inspired by the newly developing public cripple care and self-help initiatives in other countries. Braun publicly stated that the developments in Germany’s Weimar Republic, especially the Preußische Krüppelfürsorgegesetz (Prussian Cripple Welfare Law), served as a model (Arbeiter-Zeitung, February 7, 1928, 8). Soon, however, Braun was faced with disagreements within the organisation. The central question was whether the fight should be primarily for benefit claims (as in the case of war victims or persons who had an occupational accident and therefore access to a disability pension) or whether comprehensive solutions should be sought in a broad self-help approach (Der Krüppel September–October, 1934, 37–39).

Foundation of the first Austrian Cripple Working Group

In 1926, Siegfried Braun and a number of like-minded people left the Austrian Selbsthilfebund der Körperbehinderten in disappointment; this self-help alliance subsequently fell apart (Der Krüppel, October, 1928, 149 and 150), and instead the Erste Österreichische Krüppelarbeitsgemeinschaft (First Austrian Cripple Working Group) was founded. Beyond a care approach, the First Austrian Cripple Working Group draws attention to emancipation and social rights, such as the right to work (cf. Schönwiese 2019). From the beginning, the association’s aims were emancipating and empowering people with disabilities, as well as ‘independent living’ and ‘work not pity’. Particularly Braun worked hard to advance the organisation of physically disabled people whose impairments had been caused neither by military service nor by work-related accidents or illnesses and who therefore received no disability pension. He always mentioned the 60,000 people in Austria who were in this kind of living situation and needed to be approached and represented (Der Krüppel, October, 1927, 79).

In August 1926, the first general assembly with 100 members was held. Siegfried Braun was elected as chairman. In the years to follow, he organised information events, conferences, and discussion groups in order to expand the circle of allies, and to make politicians and the general public aware of the problems and demands of people with disabilities. Not only those affected but also a small group of representatives in politics, educational institutions, and medicine soon were among his allies. In January 1927, the first issue of the magazine Der Krüppel was published. It soon reached a high circulation – a total of 30,000 copies of the magazine were circulated that year (Der Krüppel, December, 1927, 93).

The fight for employment and the foundation of workshops

The claims of the Austrian Cripple Working Group were Arbeit, kein Mitleid (employment not pity) and Arbeit, nicht Siechenhaus (employment not asylum). In 1927, the association opened its first craft business (also often described as workshops) (Der Krüppel, November, 1927, 82). It was clear for Siegfried Braun and his allies that it was hard to quickly create job positions on the regular job market or in public service. Therefore, the First Austrian Cripple Working Group started to establish craft businesses – workshops where persons with disabilities and chronic diseases were employed as tailors as well as brush and basket makers. Braun writes:

Although we managed to launch our own craft businesses in Vienna and St. Pölten, there are only 20 employees – that’s such a small number, so it is definitely adequate to say: ‘It’s a drop in the ocean.’ However, only those who have shared these concerns can appreciate what it means to launch a business without even having a small operating capital. (Der Krüppel, January, 1928, 1)

Braun always tried to focus on social and political dimensions of employment, inactivity and welfare benefits: “The life of a cripple is not to be organised as mercy or a gift but by law and order as with all other working people.” (Der Krüppel, September-October, 1934, 37) He explains further:

Even if benefits [for war victims and persons who have had an accident] are still the main focus (which, by the way, can never be described as sufficient), various laws and regulations in many countries already provide for work as a more appropriate form of entitlement to live […]. (Der Krüppel, September–October, 1934, 37)

Braun always demanded that the public sector should do more to create jobs for people with disabilities. Whenever he and his fellow campaigners raised this demand with those responsible, they were rebuffed with the friendly words that ‘as much as possible was being done’. This argumentative topos has a symbolic function of naturalising social inequality (cf. Edelman 1976) and aims at devaluing demands for social justice and redistribution.

According to Braun, the members of the Austrian Cripple Working Group are often “recipients of benefits for the poor, who receive support of which it is fair to say is too little to live, and too much to die” (Der Krüppel, February, 1928, 23), and individuals who for different reasons have received no benefits at all. Being categorised unable to work due to disability and being evaluated as poor, Siegfried Braun himself received 200 Czech Koruna or 40 Austrian Schilling (worth 150 euros today) monthly as a financial benefit from his home municipality Mohelnice in Moravia, which was far too little to cover the cost of living. Until 1938, the principle of the right of domicile, which originated from the monarchy, was applied in Austria and the former Crown Lands of the monarchy in the provision of care for the poor. This poor relief system was inadequate in terms of organisation and scope (Wegscheider and Riegler 2015).

Braun’s future perspective is above all based on a balanced amount of productive and paid work, which he prioritises, and government responsibility in the sense of ensuring a sufficient basic income. He writes:

Our demand is: benefits only if employment is impossible for a reason. And in such case, the benefits have to be sufficient. […] Today’s official concept of benefits is not liberating in practice but destroys the value of life […]. There is no better medicine against any kind of crippledom than work. During my travels, this sentence was confirmed and witnessed everywhere […]. (Der Krüppel, February, 1928, 23)

The Austrian Cripple Working Group trained several apprentices and two master craftsmen in their craft businesses (Der Krüppel, January, 1928, 1), and in 1937, the group created more than 60 jobs (Der Krüppel, March-April, 1936, 21-22). Especially in the 1930s, with the economic crisis and austerity programmes as well as increasing political polarisation and militarisation, maintaining the craft business was difficult.

Travels and international perspectives

Siegfried Braun travelled extensively and closely followed the development of self-help organisations and cripple welfare in many countries, as we know from numerous reports in the magazine Der Krüppel and articles in various daily newspapers. He wanted to become acquainted with teaching methods and care measures for disabled people in other countries (Neues Wiener Journal, July 3, 1929). Braun had to travel in his wheelchair, but public transport was not accessible, so he spent many hours in luggage carts. Braun praised the emergence of homes that offered schooling, vocational training and/or permanent employment for people with disabilities.

In 1927, he reported on a study trip through Czechoslovakia, Scandinavia, and Germany, during which he had an intensive exchange with the German Selbsthilfebund der Körperbehinderten (S.B.K., Self-Help Alliance of the Physically Handicapped) in Berlin. In a welcome message, the German Self-Help Alliance for the Physically Handicapped emphasised the common ground in the fight for human rights, labour integration, and equality, as Braun stated in the same article:

On behalf of the Reich’s organisation of the S.B.K., the Berlin local group warmly welcomes the comrades of the First Austrian Cripple Working Group, and the sister organisations in Denmark and Norway. It is a great pleasure for us to see the head of the Vienna organisation, Mr Siegfried Braun, in our midst. We vow to the sister organisation in Austria to fight side by side with them for the human rights of cripples, work, bread, and equal rights. This is the common goal of our cooperation for the sake of the cripple, for the benefit of mankind, and for the completion of the civic idea. (Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung, March 21, 1928, 8-9)

Braun mentions that he mainly spoke to Friedrich Malikowski and Marie Gruhl, both wheelchair users who had also travelled together for studies on many occasions (Fuchs 1999a). Malikowski, just like Hans Förster (the late founder of the S.B.K.), saw a conflict between self-help and the so-called cripple care, especially Hans Würtz’s “psychology of physically disabled” (also named cripple psychology), and the hierarchical relationship between disabled people and their educators (Fuchs 1999a). Together orthopaedics – represented by the famous physician Konrad Biesalsky – and the cripple welfare – represented by the educational theorist Hans Würtz – pursued the goal of “Entkrüppelung” (decrippling) as a medical-rehabilitative and special educational principle in today’s sense. Biesalsky had significantly influenced the Prussian Cripple Welfare Law of 1920 (Der Krüppel, November, 1928, 154), which Braun and the First Austrian Cripple Working Group repeatedly praised as exemplary, although Malikowski, Gruhl and other members of the German Self-Help Alliance were extremely critical of it. Marie Gruhl – a teacher herself – was one of the early advocates of inclusive education and rejected special schools. Braun reported that he had exchanged ideas with the orthopaedist Biesalsky and the educational theorist Würtz while in Berlin. Braun commented in this context that in the interest of a solution to the “social question of the cripple” “all forces would have to be joint” in international work (Der Krüppel, Oktober, 1927, 75). So he focused primarily on cooperation, sought contact with important experts, and tried to avoid conflicts while emphasising independence.

Braun visited organisations and institutions which, in his opinion, were exemplarily dedicated to the support of persons with disabilities (Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung, July 29, 1927). Braun’s position is perhaps best expressed in his praise for the Prague Children’s Cripple Home run by August Bartosch (Der Krüppel, December, 1927, 89-91). When describing the children’s self-management and the successes in the intellectual advancement and education of severely disabled children and young adults, one notices his enthusiasm for an education “from the child’s point of view” inspired by reform education. He refers to the socio-political reform line of the sociologist (and daughter of the founder and first president of Czechoslovakia) Alice Masaryk (Der Krüppel, December, 1927, 89-90). Braun invited Bartosch to a Congress for Cripple Welfare with the title “Die Bekämpfung des Krüppelelends” (The fight against cripple misery) in 1928, at which, in addition to Bartosch, Friedrich Malikowski of the German S.B.K., one socialist and one conservative member of the Austrian National Council, representatives of the Viennese social administration and Siegfried Braun himself were to speak (Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung, February 15, 1928, 4). Braun’s enthusiasm for international developments is representative of his criticism of the Austrian authorities, although he never named socialist or conservative politics or politicians in Austria as directly responsible. The neutrality of the Austrian Cripple Working Group with regard to partisanship and ideology is mixed with caution, constant readiness to negotiate and the renunciation of politicking.

Awareness-raising and counselling services

In line with his position based on principles and optimism, Braun reacts to the socio-political situation with the hope of being able to promote developments both internally and externally through exchange and education:

While travelling throughout Czechoslovakia, Germany, Norway, and Denmark, it became clear to me that a permanent international clearing house as a sending and receiving station for valuable messages about the cripple problem would be of equal benefit to all countries. I had the opportunity to observe how the providers of cripple welfare and cripple self-help in the different countries were delighted with the few messages, bibliographical references, photographs, data and information that I was able to give them, and bring from one country to another. (Der Krüppel, October, 1927, 75)

Braun assumed a cooperation of cripple welfare and cripple self-help, which in today’s sense includes the independence of the organisation of persons with disabilities, co-determination/participation, and cooperation with the institutions of disability assistance. Braun was also enthusiastic about an international collection of best practice examples, systematic data collection and exchange in terms of content and expertise, all of which he associated with the hope of establishing an international clearing house.

In the 1920s, Siegfried Braun was registered at changing addresses in Vienna. He was repeatedly registered on the 2^nd floor of a residential house on Ennsergasse, and many of his other accommodations were located nearby. In the late 1920s, he ran an “International Private Bureau for Social Work” at Wolmutstrasse 8 (Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung, June 12, 1929, 10) – practically just around the corner – which was probably an attempt to set in motion the foundation of an international clearing house; an idea he had brought back from his visit to Norway. The establishment of a clearing house had been announced in the magazine Der Krüppel:

“[…] that we […] want to give more space to the establishment of the International Clearing House for Cripple Welfare and Self-Help, because we are convinced that permanent international relations between cripples, cripple self-help organisations, cripple teachers, cripple welfare bodies and cripple physicians are urgently needed to support each other and exchange experiences.” (Der Krüppel, December, 1927, 93)

In addition, Siegfried Braun advertised his activities as a “private welfare and life counselling centre for cripples and the disabled” (Arbeiter-Zeitung, June 24, 1929, 2). With Siegfried Braun’s peer consulting, which can be described as independent according to today’s definition, a trend-setting innovation was initiated. In his office Braun had bookshelves full of “magazines, brochures and works on the topic of cripples” (Neues Wiener Journal, July 3, 1929, 7), which he also lent to other people. Braun employed a secretary for help and assistance at work and in everyday life:

A nice and talented young man who has graduated from commercial college, speaks English, and had the misfortune of losing the usability of his right hand due to the botched treatment of a doctor who fled to Germany because of it. (Neues Wiener Journal, July 3, 1929, 7)

Freelance work for the Austrian Cripple Working Group

In the autumn of 1927, on the occasion of the first anniversary, Braun wrote about the association’s aims and the accomplishments in establishing an infrastructure, but also showed at which limits he was working (Der Krüppel, October, 1927, 77–79). Shortly after, in 1928, he decided to step down as the chairman:

My resignation has one single reason: responsibility. The burden I had to carry had become too heavy for me. Before my ideology and my nerves break down, I have decided to act according to my inner belief. However, I still have to openly express my opinion that the passive behaviour of the authorities together with the self-centred attitude of most of the members considering their efforts was co-determinative for my resignation. I wish my successor, comrade Matzner, an easier and more successful job than I was granted. (Der Krüppel, December, 1928, 175)

In that article, Braun also wrote that he himself did not have any financial security, that he would concentrate on international relations in the future, and that he wanted to continue fighting and being an ally within the scope of his capabilities.

Subsequently, he continued his freelance work for the First Austrian Cripple Working Group. Furthermore, he published articles in the magazine Der Krüppel and reported on the situation of persons with disabilities and legal measures introduced in Norway and Sweden (Norway in Der Krüppel, October, 1928, 140–143; November, 1928, 159–161; July-August, 1934, 31–32; Sweden in Der Krüppel, July–August, 1934, 31–32; November-December, 1934, 45–48). The magazine published – evidently organised by Braun – texts about the situation of persons with disabilities in Switzerland, the Netherlands, England and Wales as well as Russia. Braun participated in the 1^st World Conference of Workers for Crippled Children, which took place from July 28 to August 2, 1929 in Geneva (Switzerland). At this conference, international experts discussed the problems and experiences of caregivers of children with disabilities, focussing on healthcare and education (World Conference of Workers for Crippled Children 1929). Braun was elected to a committee responsible for drafting the resolution of the conference; he also played an active part in the conference (Der Krüppel, November–December, 1929, 270–272).

In 1934, while Braun was living in the Czech city Brno, he wrote a reflection and statement for the preparation of the 10^th anniversary of the Austrian Cripple Working Group. He criticised that “in cripple welfare – no matter which form of care – the cripples themselves have little right of co-determination and administration. That means that cripple welfare usually still follows traditional ideas.” (Der Krüppel, March-April, 1935, 11) He criticised that the institutions of the so-called cripple welfare had remained asylums and had not introduced teaching workshops or started to offer jobs. And he also criticised the systematic lack of education. He invited the Cripple Working Group to become economically more innovative with their craft businesses by introducing new products: “We also have to be inventors not just imitators.” (Der Krüppel, March-April, 1935, 13)

The Cripple Working Group was not founded as an assistance organisation, but it rather saw its role in fighting for the right to work. […] to integrate the cripple into the community as a constructive worker and not have him or her living an outcast-kind of life as a beggar on the streets or another object of charity. (Der Krüppel, March–April, 1935, 13)

Braun was no longer directly involved in the work of the Cripple Working Group; however, he took part in the general assembly in 1936. According to the minutes, he brought forward the idea that the distribution of a printed magazine with comprehensive information about the Cripple Working Group could generate financial resources. He was referring to a successful example in Norway (Der Krüppel, May–June, 1936, 29–35).

It still remains widely unknown how Siegfried Braun’s life continued in the 1930s. An extract from the register of the city of Vienna shows that between April 1931 and June 1934 he lived in a men’s residential home of the Salvation Army (which today would be called a night shelter for the homeless) in the 3^rd district of Vienna; after that he was not registered in Vienna for the following three years. During 1937 and 1938, he was registered at that same address three more times – but each time only for a few days (Record and Registration Section, Personal Communication, February 27, 2019; Gestapo Vienna, Daily Report, September 21, 1938). The financial situation of Siegfried Braun must have drastically worsened in the 1930s. According to a newspaper report from 1931, the hygienic conditions in this homeless shelter with 600 beds were catastrophic (Die rote Fahne, November 20, 1931, 7).

Due to the increasing anti-Semitism and the establishment of the authoritarian Austrofascist ”Ständestaat“ [corporate state], it probably became more attractive for Siegfried Braun to live in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Bohemian Jews increasingly avowed themselves to the Czechoslovak state during this time by “perceiving it as a stronghold for civil liberty and democracy” (Srubar 2001, 17).

Persecution of the Nazis

Shortly after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich of Hitler, Braun was arrested in Austria. The Gestapo (German Secret State Police) day report reveals that on September 13, 1939, Siegfried Braun (his profession is stated as special teacher) and six other persons – most of whom lived in the neighbourhood and were identified as Jews – were “arrested on the suspicion of conducting a communist meeting” at Ybbsstraße 44. According to the report, Braun was living at this address without being registered there (Gestapo Vienna, Daily Report, September 21, 1938). He was declared a Jew by the National Socialist state, although his Jewish identity did not seem to have played a role in his life up until that point. Braun’s traces are subsequently lost.

After the German-speaking border areas of the Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938/39) were adjudicated to the German Reich in Munich, the country became more radical, and German-speakers, especially German-speaking Jews, experienced more repression. On May 15, 1939, the German Wehrmacht occupied the (in their own words) “Rest-Tschechei” (“remaining Czech parts of Czechoslovakia”) and proclaimed them the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1945).

The situation of the Jewish population rapidly deteriorated with the introduction of the National Socialist anti-Jewish laws. The Jewish population was excluded from public and economic life; discrimination, disparagement, and exclusion became part of everyday life (Srubar 2001). Eventually, in 1941, a concentration, collection, and transit camp was established in a former Habsburg fortification Theresienstadt (today in the Czech city of Terezín) in preparation for the “Final Solution”; it was led by the Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces. Only very few persons (16,800 or 12%) deported to Theresienstadt between 1941 and 1945 survived and lived to see the liberation of the concentration camp. 88,000 out of the 141,000 prisioners were transported further, mostly to concentration and extermination camps in the east, many directly to the gas chambers; only about 3,500 ever returned. Officially, Theresienstadt was supposed to be the ghetto for the old and “privileged” German and German-speaking Jews. It was used for propaganda for the concerned foreign countries and showed a completely distorted picture of the conditions in the camp, the death rates because of hunger, neglect, violence or desperation were high; 33,500 already died in Theresienstadt (Srubar 2001; Adler 1960). After 1942, the mortality rate within the population of Theresienstadt exceeded the normal rate (estimated at around 3%) multiple times, and at certain times the mortality rate reached numbers that were thirty times higher than normal. The average age of the people who died was 71.11 years in 1943 (Adler 1960, 526-528). The SS introduced a “Jewish self-administration” in order to carry out all the tasks. The Council of Elders had to play a part in the camp administration and, among other things, prepare the transport lists. The Jewish self-administration was criticised for patronage, corruption, mismanagement, and in particular for its bureaucracy – “only names and terms without concrete reality” (Adler 1960, 223) and “a constant conflict of abstract rules and regulations” (Adler 1960, 261), which were incompatible with everyday life in the camp.

It seems that Siegfried Braun as a physically disabled person was not prosecuted as “unworthy to live” by the Nazi eugenic ideology and euthanasia programmes. They were mainly focued on murdering cognitively disabled and mentally ill people (Poore 2006). Braun was prosecuted because of being Jewish. Siegfried Braun was living in a home for the elderly and sick in Ostrava, the third-largest city in Bohemia and Moravia, close to his hometown of Mohelnice when he was deported to Theresienstadt on June 30, 1943. Most Jews from Moravian Ostrava were relocated by the Nazis in September 1942 in four transports, each carrying 800 persons. Transport Df Nr. 45 on June 30, 1943 with 72 persons carried mainly Jewish patients and employees of the home in Ostrava (Seznam transportů Židů vypravených do Terezína; see also Shoah-database Institut Terezínské iniciativy).

The diary entries of Siegfried Braun provide evidence that he was accommodated in the self-organised care for the elderly in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto. Under no circumstances, however, the care for the elderly, war invalids or people with disabilities in the camp can be understood as adequate or sufficient care (Adler 1960, 154, 534-547; see also Diary entries from Max Siegfried Braun, May 22, 1944). According to a report from 1942 “there were hundreds of them in these rooms, left to be taken care of by partly retrained, partly untrained staff. The care for the poorest was extremely miserable. And the care staff would even take away some of the already little food they had been allocated” (Adler 1960, 536). The accommodation was miserable, the rooms were heavily overcrowded, and the staff was completely overwhelmed with work.

In July 1943, a total of 8,984 persons (19%) out of the 46,395 ghetto residents were taken care of by self-organised welfare services. Most of them belonged to the group of “sick people” (43% or 3,900 persons, 60% of these in inpatient care). The second largest group (24% or 2,121 persons) were the “physically disabled [cripples]”. 74% or 1,563 of these were in outpatient care (Adler 1960, 536). Siegfried Braun most likely lived in one of the houses aministered by the outpatient care services, which were distributed across the whole camp. The caregivers – usually former nurses – were also accommodated in these houses. Some of them were caring and committed, while others – as Siegfried Braun described it – were careless, lazy, and selfish. Braun described the access to bathtubs, granted about once per month, as his special service (Diary entries from Max Siegfried Braun, May 22, 1944). Additionally, the patients were visited by the caregivers several times per day. Adler pointed out that even though there was goodwill, everything got stuck at the beginning, bureaucracy was high, and the suffering of those affected was great (Adler 1960).

Self-help and resistance in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto

Throughout his life, Siegfried Braun was committed to those around him, had many interests and enjoyed taking part in discussions about the prevailing conditions, their causes, and opportunities for change. Even in the inhospitable environment of the concentration camp and ghetto, he promoted help for self-help and enlightenment through education. Siegfried Braun was described as a “person of importance” (Makarova, Makarov, and Kuperman 2000, 125) in the organisation of the illegal education programme of Theresienstadt. He was an organiser and patron of anti-fascist lectures and also a strict critic of the Elders Council for its nepotism and inability to stand up to Nazi pressures. (Makarova, Makarov, and Kuperman 2000, 125). Even in Theresienstadt he continued to lend books to his fellow prisoners − he always had some books hidden in his ‘cart’. His fellow prisoner Jiři Borský, who also saved his diary entries, describes Braun’s work:

A great contribution to education came from Siegfried (Vítězslav) Braun, a 50 year old [sic.] invalid. He moved in a cart in which he always kept several books for exchange or lending out. Almost daily, he organised lectures and discussions. […] The room could hold some 20 persons, all acquaintances of Mr. Braun. The lectures were held without permission of the SS, so to be on the save [sic.] side, a violin was played by a girl from Brno. […] Vítězslav Braun was very much interested in discussion; often these were more interesting than the lecture itself. (Makarova, Makarov, and Kuperman 2000, 125–126)

The lectures organised by Siegfried Braun dealt with the Czech, German, and Jewish history, and they explored from different angles and perspectives why the Nazi ideology and the German imperialism were able to develop. In retrospect, Borský reflects upon these lectures: “It seems as if the topic was never discussed so openly, in such an anti-fascist way, as […] in the illegal talks.” (Makarova, Makarov, and Kuperman 2000, 216)

Siegfried Braun wrote about his situation in Theresienstadt in a spiteful but still confident way in his diary:

I am fortunate that despite the obstacles of J.[ewish] self-administration, i.e. the bureaucracy of my (one hundred percent) total disability, I was able to (individually), personally and illegally fight my way through the force of my will, otherwise I would have perished long ago. (Diary entries from Max Siegfried Braun, May, 22, 1944)

He took care of the persons around him in the camp, especially people with disabilities. But also for others he searched for solutions to problems, gave advice in difficult situations, or found words of consolation. At the same time, his intellect and literacy made him a popular interlocutor on political or philosophical issues. In the camp, he identified problems and injustices and passed these on. In his diary he recorded his thoughts on this topic:

During the night I thought about why I cannot make myself popular. The reason is that I want to keep my personality and character and want to stick to the truth. I cannot mentally ingratiate myself or kowtow to gain advantages. (Diary entries from Max Siegfried Braun, April 07, 1944)

In another section of his diary he analysed the organisation of the camp and the grievances:

My brother visited me very agitatedly and told me to only take care of myself, not criticise or complain. Do-gooders were not welcome here. But at the age of fifty I cannot change anymore; I will keep my convictions, my conscience, my sense of responsibility, and my philanthropy; I cannot howl with the wolves, I cannot sing the song of him whose bread I eat. I have read many things about hunger, but I have concluded that writers themselves have never suffered hunger. Our existing long-lasting system of malnutrition and vitamin deficiency is hardly curable. The body of the dead has already been lying here for fourteen hours, it has turned black and smells awful. Where are hygiene, cleanliness, and ethics? The explanation that this is Theresienstadt is not enough for me. Many things wouldn’t have to be this way – especially the arbitrary bureaucracy. It is a disgrace that in times of lawlessness and oppression Jews themselves oppress each other – especially the weak, old, and miserable. (Diary entries from Max Siegfried Braun, May, 22, 1944)

Theresienstadt was a transit station on the way to the Auschwitz extermination camp. In the autumn transports of Theresienstadt from September 28 to October 28, 1944, the horrific number of people deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz II-Birkenau reached 18,400. Only 1,574 of them survived. On October 23, 1944, Siegfried Braun was among the 1,715 persons deported with the penultimate autumn transport of Theresienstadt (Transport Et Nr. 763). After arriving in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the prisoners, like the others before them, were divided at the ramp into ”Arbeitsfähige“ (fit for work) and ”Arbeitsunfähige“ (unfit for work) according to National Socialist standards. Most of them, including Siegfried Braun if he even survived the transport, were selected upon arrival at the ramp and murdered in the gas chambers; the persons of the smaller group were used as forced labourers. Out of the 1,715 persons deported in Transport Et Nr. 763, only 186 (10.84%) survived (Kárný 1995, 20-21; see also Adler 1960, 192-194). The sociologist H. G. Adler, also interned at Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto, observed: “The extraordinary self-control and clarity of bed-stricken invalids was sometimes surprising. The cumbersome administrative procedures often presented them with unsolvable problems; they could neither adapt nor find their way around.” (Adler 1960, 547) This quote by Adler reminds us of Siegfried Braun’s attitude and behaviour.

Conclusion

This biographical research shows that personal stories are not unitary but instead complex and multiple as well simultaneous interwoven with European history. Siegfried Braun is an activist of the disability rights movement in Austria in the early 20^th century. His views were critical, political, and emancipatory; he was an outspoken anti-fascist and democrat. Together with like-minded people he founded the First Austrian Cripple Working Group. This advocacy and self-help association was the first disabled persons’ organization (DPO) in Austria oriented towards comprehensive rights. Siegfried Braun concentrated on discrimination and explained his experiences of disability consistently as a sociological and political constructed problem rather than in individual or medical terms. The presentation of Braun’s transition to adulthood and his approach of thinking show similarities to Randolph Bourne, the US intellectual and writer of the essay “The Handicapped, by one of them” (Bourne 1911 [1913], see also Longmore 2003). The close reading of Braun’s writings similarly reveals that his experience and perspective as a disabled person influenced his approach to various subjects, from education and the social order in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto. In contrast to Bourne, who suffered from stigmatisation and discrimination because of his appearance, Braun used a wheelchair and required personal assistance.

In the 1920s und 1930s, Braun and his fellows of the Austrian Cripple Working Group actively and continuously demanded access to medical treatment, education, vocational training, paid employment, and social services supporting independent living. The association’s aims were emancipating and empowering people with disabilities. Braun can justifiably be considered as their ideologist. He was an advocate for ‘independent living’ and ‘work not pity’. In his articles, Braun intensively condemns institutionalisation in asylums as well as stigmatising social condition, prejudice and discrimination, but he also avoids striving towards normalisation. However, in keeping with the zeitgeist, he also demanded the introduction of a so-called cripple welfare which includes medical treatment or special education, and vocational training. In line with the zeitgeist, Braun favoured a medical or rehabilitation approach in public policy and professional practice (Longmore and Goldberger 2000), which stands in sharp contrast to the Independent Living Movement in the second half of the 20^th century.

However, it must also be recognised that Braun and his fellows historically endeavoured to achieve a progressive development that seems to be characteristic of political reform efforts and progressive education at this time. The living conditions must also be considered: There was no compulsory schooling for children with disabilities. Furthermore, hardly any public transport or public policies existed for persons with disabilities whose impairments were caused by war or work-related accidents. However, the Austrian Cripple Working Group failed to implement their intentions because of the political and economic circumstances related to the Great Depression.

Braun’s life can only be partially reconstructed, as many aspects are still unknown. However, with his media presence – most of the articles analysed in our research were written by Braun himself – and with his personal diary entries we can draw a picture very contrary to passiveness or the stories of “treatments or derelictions, benefactions or neglect.” (Longmore 2003, 9) In his writings, Braun uses a clear language, yet some things are difficult to understand nowadays: historical terms are used, and dramatic social backgrounds (World War I, reform movements, Great Depression, civil war, the collapse of the First Austrian Republic, Austrofascism, or Nazi ideology) always have to be taken into account. After 1938, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto, where he organised education programmes, lent books and offered peer counselling as a form of resistance. The position of Siegfried Braun was to remain proactive in all situations by trying to create and provide self-help, even in terrible conditions. The personal notes of a person with disabilities in the concentration camp and ghetto proves that he maintained his active and criticial position even during his imprisonment in Theresienstadt; he helped fellow prisioners and critically analysed the camp conditions and the Nazi ideology before he was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

In many ways, Braun and the First Austrian Cripple Working group can be described as a pioneer of the disability rights movement starting in the 1960s and 1970s. Braun and his fellows fought for rights, social progress and addressed topics and political demands which still play a key role in the international disability rights and Independent Living Movement today. The investigation of the history of the disability movement and its advocates in Austria as well as the historiography of early disability rights movements and of persons with disabilities in the Holocaust is still in its early stages.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).