Leopold KAINAR was born in Salzburg-Maxglan on June 14, 1890 and was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. He was one of the three children of the cabinet maker Rudolf Kainar and his wife Leopoldine.
The marriage of Rudolf and Leopoldine broke up around 1900 and the children stayed with their mother. Leopoldine had to undertake work as an unskilled laborer to support herself and the children.
Leopold trained in a prestigious department store in the Salzburg Old Town and worked there as a clerk. His last private residence was at 4 Rainbergstraße in the Riedenburg neighborhood, but from 1924 on he was a patient in the State Asylum and declared unable to work – which became a crucial rationale for murdering the handicapped after the Nazis took over.
Leopold KAINAR was one of the 82 patients deported from the Salzburg State Asylum to the Hartheim Castle killing center on April 17, 1941 – where they were all murdered.
As with all of the victims of the Nazis secret »T4«1 extermination campaign the death of the 50 year old Leopold KAINAR was not recorded in the Salzburg police registration files.
His mother Leopoldine died in Salzburg at age 85 in the war year 1944. His brother Rudolf survived the terror years in Carinthia.
We are grateful for the information provided by a family member. We now know that Leopold KAINAR returned home from Russian captivity after the First World War seriously ill and had to be hospitalized.
1 It was called the »T4« program because its Berlin headquarters were located at Tiergartenstraße 4.
Primarily responsible for the murderous program in Salzburg were: Dr. Friedrich Rainer as Governor, Dr. Oskar Hausner as leader of the regional health office, Dr. Leo Wolfer as director of the State Asylum (now called the Christian-Doppler-Clinic), and Dr. Heinrich Wolfer as head of the hereditary disease section of the State Asylum.
Sources
- War Crimes Records of the U.S. Judge Advocate Division Headquarters (The National Archives Washington DC)
- Parish Registers of the Salzburg Archdiocese
- Police registration files of the city of Salzburg
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 24.09.2019 at Salzburg, Untersbergstraße 13
Leopold Kainar 1920Photo: private
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer