Madritsch Julius

Madritsch, Julius Titsch, Raimund Vienna-born Julius Madritsch was an expert in textiles. During the occupation of Poland, Madritsch served as a trustee of the German authorities, managing two textile factories close to the Krakow ghetto, which the Germans had confiscated from their original owners. He used his position to help the Jewish laborers who were forced to work in these factories. In 1941, Madritsch received a license to erect a private factory in the area of the ghetto. Together with his factory manager Raimund Titsch, he made sure to employ as many Jewish laborers as possible, in cooperation with the Krakow ghetto Judenradt. Madritsch and Titsch employed many Jews who were not professional workers – in fact only about 40 percent of the 800 employees in the sewing factory were professional. Madritsch and Titsch made sure the work conditions were humane, gave their workers large amounts of bread so they could sell part of it in the ghetto, and allowed Jewish laborers to make contact with the Poles outside the factory. They even arranged for a kosher kitchen in the factory. Madritsch and Titsch’s efforts to help Jews extended beyond the walls of their own factories – they provided sewing materials to other workshops employing thousands of other Jewish workers. Madritsch opened a branch of the factory next to the Tarnow ghetto. This factory, which was also managed by Titsch, employed some 800 workers (less than half of whom were really professional). As in Krakow, the workers in the Tarnow factory worked under humane conditions and received larger-then-usual food rations. The factory car, which was used for the delivery of materials, was also put to use smuggling food into the ghetto with Madritsch and Titsch’s full knowledge. Madritsch also helped a number of his workers in Krakow escape from the ghetto and hide among the local population. In these activities, he was helped by Oswald Bosko*, a high-ranking policeman in the German ghetto policeforce, and by a number of other Vienna-born police officers, responsible for counting the factory workers at the beginning and end of each shift, who simply overlooked the fact that workers had disappeared. At the end of 1942, Madritsch discovered that all the children of the Krakow ghetto were to be transported to the camps. He decided to save his workers’ children. He was again helped by Bosko, who, in a nighttime operation, smuggled the children and their mothers out of the ghetto into Madritsch’s factory. The next day the workers and their families escaped to the area of Tarnow. Two days after that, the children who remained in the ghetto were sent to Auschwitz, or were shot. When the Krakow ghetto was about to be destroyed, Madritsch went to the authorities, asking that his workers, who had been transferred to the Plaszow labor camp on the outskirts of Krakow, be allowed to continue working for his factory within the city itself, and they walked there every day. The Krakow ghetto was liquidated on March 13, 1943, but the workers in Madritsch’s factory were saved from deportation. After the destruction of the ghetto, hundreds of Jewish families continued to hide in the ghetto’s bunkers and basements. With Bosko’s help, many of these Jews, including children, were transferred to Madritsch’s factory. Some of the Jews that hid in the factory later hid with Polish families, and others escaped to the area of Tarnow. From Tarnow, most of them managed to flee to Slovakia and from there to Hungary. Due to the harsh conditions at Plaszow, many of Madritsch’s workers asked for help to escape. Madritsch got permission from the SS to transfer a few hundred workers from the factory in Krakow to Tarnow, claiming that it was necessary to speed up production. From the 25th to the 26th of March 1943, 232 Jews – men, women and children – were sent from the Krakow factory to Tarnow with Titsch, without any SS escort. Of this group, many escaped to Slovakia and Hungary, andmost of them were saved. Madritsch and Titsch also helped Jews get out of the Tarnow ghetto, letting them join the Jewish workers who walked from the ghetto to the factory without being counted, and they could then escape. The escapees hid with Polish families or went over the border to Slovakia. In September 1943, the Germans sealed the gates of the Plaszow camp and no longer allowed Jews to go out to work in Madritsch’s factory. In response, Madritsch opened a factory on the grounds of the camp itself. During the last deportation from the Tarnow ghetto on September 1, 1943, Madritsch’s Tarnow-based workers were brought to the Plaszow factory. Some 2000 Jews were employed in Madritsch’s Plaszow factory, and here, too, worked under humane conditions and received larger food rations than was usual, some of which were distributed to other Jews in the Plaszow camp, not just the workers and their families. In addition to material help, Madritsch and Titsch were known for relating to their workers with warmth and encouragement, an attitude that helped them persevere under severe conditions. They talked with the workers when possible, and tried to fulfill their requests. In September 1944, the Plaszow camp was liquidated. Madritsch and Titsch tried to save their workers from deportation by approaching the authorities with a request to start up another factory in the areas that were still in German control, but this request was denied. Madritsch and Titsch managed to send about 100 of their workers to the ammunition factory run by Oskar Schindler* (See Germany), and in this way, saved them from being sent to the concentration camps. After the war, Madritsch published a booklet called People in Distress! (Menschen in Not!), in which he described his activities to help the Jews during the war. On February 18, 1964, Yad Vashem recognized Julius Madritsch and Raimund Titsch as Righteous Among the Nations.