Johanna (Jeanette) KLEIN, neé DRUCKER1 was born on October 8, 1859 in Klattau, Bohemia [then in the Austrian Empire, now Klatovy in the Czech Republic]. She was the Jewish widow of shopkeeper Moritz KLEIN2 and had three children, Hugo, Karl und Elsa, who were all born in Brod, Bohemia [now Cesky Brod in the Czech Republic]. The family lived in the city of Salzburg since 1892 and had full citizenship rights in the city of Salzburg under the old Austrian Heimatrecht Laws.3 Johanna’s husband Moritz KLEIN, who had owned a sawmill a few kilometers north of Salzburg in Bergheim4, died in Salzburg in 1923. The widow and her two sons Hugo and Karl lived here at 15 Markus Sittikus-Straße. Her daughter Elsa had married the Salzburg shopkeeper Abraham MORPURGO and lived with her family in the building at Rainerstraße 15/19 Schlachthofgasse [now the Hans Prodingerstrasse].
In June 1938 the 78 year old Johanna KLEIN fled to safety in Amsterdam with the MORPURGO family. But after the German conquest and occupation of the Netherlands the entire KLEIN-MORPURGO family was arrested. Presumably, along with the other Jews arrested in the Netherlands, they were interned in the transit concentration camp Westerbork before they were deported to Auschwitz (their internment and deportation dates are unknown but their death data were registered in Auschwitz).
The 83 year old Johanna KLEIN was murdered in Auschwitz on February 12, 1943. Her son-in-law Abraham MORPURGO, was also murdered in Auschwitz along with Johanna’s granddaughter Edith (who had been born in Salzburg in 1912) and her great-granddaughter Eveline (who had been born in Amsterdam in 1940). It seems that Johanna’s daughter Elsa MORPURGO wasn’t deported to Auschwitz. Research in the Netherlands uncovered evidence that before she could be deported she died in Amsterdam on October 28, 1942. Johanna’s sons Hugo and Karl were interned in the Dachau concentration camp with most of Salzburg’s Jewish men at the time of the Kristallnacht Pogrom in November 1938, but after their release they were able to flee to Genoa and take a ship to Shanghai. Karl KLEIN died of unknown causes in Shanghai on June 13, 1947. His brother Hugo KLEIN emigrated to Palestine after WWII and died in a pulmonary hospital in Malben, Israel on April 30, 1956.
Moritz KLEIN’s gravestone can still be seen in Salzburg’s Jewish cemetery.
1 Her parents were Josef and Elisabeth Drucker, neé Freid (their graves are in the Straschnitz cemetery in Prague). She had five siblings, but nothing further is known about them.
2 Her husband Moritz Klein was born in Brzeznitz, Bohemia on March 7, 1851 and died in Salzburg on April 17, 1923 (grave in the Salzburg Jewish cemetery in Aigen); Moritz’ brother Julius Klein was born in Brzeznitz on April 6, 1860, and lived in Salzburg from 1902 until 1937 (his fate is unknown)
3 The heimat registration for the Klein family in the Salzburg City archives.
4 The ford-mill in Bergheim was the property of the Klein family from 1916 to 1931 (Bergheim property register).
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 07.07.2011 at Salzburg, Markus-Sittikus-Straße 15
Gravestone of Moritz Klein
Registration form of Johanna Klein