Josef HOCH was born in Siezenheim (just west of Salzburg) on March 2, 1921. Baptized Catholic, he was the second of five illegitimate children born to Katharina HOCH, a woman who was unable to learn a trade and had to work as a servant.
She and her children had local citizenship rights in Salzburg and lived in the Elisabethvorstadt neighborhood.
At various times Katharina HOCH’s children were placed temporarily in institutional settings or with foster parents.
Her son Josef, who was identified as »mentally handicapped«, was a patient in the St. Anthony Caritas-Village before he was transferred as a 17 year old to the Salzburg State Asylum in August 1938.
Josef HOCH was one of 82 patients who were deported from there to the Hartheim Castle killing center near Linz on April 17, 1941, where they were all murdered.
As with all the other victims of the Nazis’ secret »T4«1 program the death of this 20 year old youth was not recorded in the Salzburg police registration files.
His mother and siblings all survived the terror years and his mother died in Salzburg at age 73.
1 It was called the »T-4« program because its Berlin headquarters were located at Tiergartenstraße 4.
Those mainly responsible for the murders of the sick in Salzburg: Dr. Friedrich Rainer as Reichsstatthalter, Dr. Oskar Hausner as head of the Gaufürsorgeamt, Dr. Leo Wolfer as head of the Landesheilanstalt, and Dr. Heinrich Wolfer as head of the hereditary biology department of the Landesheilanstalt (today the Christian Doppler Clinic).
Sources
- Salzburg city archives
- Schloss Hartheim Learning and Remembrance Center
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 14.11.2016 at Salzburg, Elisabethstraße 28
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer