Life

Kurt Rosenkranz grew up in the Viennese district of Brigittenau

Brigittenau

Brigittenau is the 20th District of Vienna . It is located north of the central districts, north of Leopoldstadt on the same island area between the Danube and the Danube Canal...

. His Jewish parents and grandparents had emigrated from Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

 to Vienna. At the age of 9 he became a member of the boys' choir at the temple (de) in Kaschlgasse.

In the year 1938, in the course of the “Anschluss

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

” Kurt Rosenkranz experienced riots and humiliation. He was transferred from his old school to a “Sammelschule” for Jews in Währingerstraße 43. The Rosenkranz family fled to Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

, but when the German troops arrived there, the members of the Rosenkranz family were transferred to Soviet camps and interned first at Novosibirsk

Novosibirsk

Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...

 in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, then in Karaganda

Karaganda

Karagandy , more commonly known by its Russian name Karaganda, , is the capital of Karagandy Province in Kazakhstan. It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind Almaty , Astana and Shymkent, with a population of 471,800 . In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic...

 in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

.

In 1946 Kurt Rosenkranz returned to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 to work with his father in their small shoe factory.

In 1989 Kurt Rosenkranz founded the Jewish Institute for Adult Education.

He earned the title “Professor” for his merits. His brother Herbert Rosenkranz

Herbert Rosenkranz

Herbert Rosenkranz was a Jewish historian.-Life:Herbert Rosenkranz grew up in the Viennese district of Brigittenau. His Jewish parents, Michael and Mircia, , and his grandparents had immigrated from Eastern Europe. The family emigrated to Riga after the „Anschluss" of Austria to Hitler-Germany...

 worked as a historian at Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....

.

Writings

• Together with David Zelinger (ed.): Verpflichtung eines Überlebenden – Reden und Berichte. Bohmann, Vienna 1993

Literature

• "Encyclopaedia of Austrian Authors of Jewish Descent. 18th to 20th Century"; Ed.: Austrian National Library
  Austrian National Library
  The Austrian National Library , is the largest library in Austria, with 7.4 million items in its collections. It is located in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna; since 2005 some of the collections are located in the baroque Palais Mollard-Clary...
  
  , Vienna. K.G. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 (Volume 2)
• Christian H. Stifter, Brigitte Ungar-Klein (ed.): Bildung gegen Vorurteile, Festschrift aus Anlass des 10jährigen Jubiläums des Jüdischen Instituts für Erwachsenenbildung, Wien 2000

External links

• Jewish Institute for Adult Education