Emma NEUMAYR was born in Salzburg on October 23, 1878. She was an unmarried Catholic seamstress who worked and lived in the house of Baroness Ergelett at 2 Arenbergstraße before she became ill.
Emma was the second of the eight children of Theresia and Kaspar NEUMAYR, an artisan family that had city citizenship rights in Salzburg under Austrian law.
Kaspar was a master carpenter who had worked for a long time at the Salzburg City Theater before his death in 1911. His oldest son Hermann was also a master carpenter and had his workshop on the Ignaz-Harrer-Straße in the Lehen district, where he lived with his family, his widowed mother and his invalid sister Emma.
The 83 year old widow Theresia died in Salzburg in October 1938.
Emma NEUMAYR had been a patient at the State Asylum in Salzburg-Lehen since 1924 and was one of the 68 women and men who were deported to the Hartheim killing center on April 16, 1941 and murdered. As with all the victims of the secret Nazi »T-4«1 program her death was not recorded in the City of Salzburg police registration files.
Emma NEUMAYR’s brothers Hermann, Karl and Anton survived the terror years in Salzburg.
The younger brother Anton NEUMAYR, who had been born in Salzburg on June 1, 1887, was a teacher and social democratic politician. He was both mayor of the city of Hallein a few miles south of Salzburg and a member of the state legislature until his party was banned in February 1934. After Salzburg’s liberation he was mayor of the city of Salzburg from 1946 to 1951 and he also served as deputy governor of the state. He was awarded honorary citizenship status in both Hallein and Salzburg. Survivors of the Nazi terror asked for a memorial in the city of Salzburg, but none was built during the tenure of Mayor Anton NEUMAYR.
After his death on June 18, 1954 the cities of Hallein and Salzburg both named squares after him.
1 The »T-4 euthanasia« program to kill the handicapped was named after its headquarters’ address in Berlin at 4 Tiergartenstraße.
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 (now Christian Doppler Clinic).
Translation: Stan Nadel
Stumbling Stone
Laid 19.04.2013 at Salzburg, Ignaz-Harrer-Straße 34
Photo: Gert Kerschbaumer