The Taussig family

During our research in the files of foreigners of the Rhône prefecture of Lyons, we found a family that we had already encountered in other dossiers in Lyons and in Nice, the Taussig family.
They did not opt for Belgium but for France when they left Vienna.
Like the Kornweitz, they were late in their decision to leave the Reich.



The family of Rudolf Taussig indeed obtained a passport on June 2nd 1939 in Vienna and left the territory of the Reich on the 27th of the same month by the border post of Arnoldstein in Carinthie in the zone that today extends across the three borders of Austria, Italy and Slovenia.

Rudolf, aged 56, his wife Léonie, aged 56 and their son Hans, 29 years old, entered Italy via the province of Frioul.
At this period Italy no longer accepted Jewish foreigners on its territory and it is likely that, taken into custody by the Italian authorities and the COMASEBIT (Comitato d’assistenza agli Ebrei in Italia) the Taussig family was escorted towards the Italian Riviera.

We take up their traces again on July 9th 1939 when they reached the French coast at Roquebrune Cap Martin on the Côte d’Azur.

The constabulary, tipped off by a telephone call signaling the passage of clandestine refugees awaiting them on the beach, arrested them and took them to Menton.

In the transcript of his arrest Rudolf Taussig states :

“With my wife and son, we embarked at Vintimilglia in order to reach France, our situation in Germany having been terrible. We left Vintimiglia at 21 h and we disembarked at 0h10 close to Menton. Two people managed to escape by hiding behind rocks. Because of the dark, I could not recognize the boatmen; I do remember that there were three of them. We paid 600 liras per person; I do not recognize the people in front of me here as having been the boatmen. The boat was 3 meters 50 centimeters long and was one meter twenty five wide, and was a rowing boat.”

The individuals arrested were :

Taussig Léonie née Bondy 29/3/1885 in Vienna; daughter of Joseph Bondy and Bertha Donath
Taussig Rudolf, born 26/5/1883 at Chrudim in Czechoslovakia, son of Adolf Taussig and Louisette Teveles
Taussig Hans, born 28/6/1910 in Vienna, son of Rudolf and Léonie
Landau James, born 21/08/1895 in Breslau, son of Wilhem and Henriette Kehlmann
Kulka Bruno born 30/12/1894 in Prerou (Moravia), son of Jean and Emma Herzka.

On 11th July Rudolf and his relatives were given a pass to travel to Lyon where they arrived on the 14th.
Rudolf and Hans were sent to the Bron refugee foyer on July 24th, 8 rue de la Solidarité.

Rudolf left intermittently until his internment at the camp of Loriol in the Drôme in Autumn, from which he was liberated only on January 7th 1940. The camp commander, lieutenant Colonel de Sclere had not considered in October 39 that he was capable of being useful to the economy.

Loriol (Drôme) is a French assembly and internment camp for foreigners open between September 1939 and May 1940 for “enemy nationals”, just like the camp of Chambaran. Following the first sifting, Loriol and Chambaran were the only two camps in the Isère and the Drôme to remain open on March 12th 1940. The interns classified as unfit for service for health or other reasons were sent to Loriol where there were already elderly people. Between March and April 1940, the Chambaran camp housed 400 people classified fit for service and Loriol housed 150 people classified as unfit for service. Rudolf Taussig was 57 in 1940, which is probably why he was sent to Loriol and then left in January 1940.
Hans was sent from Bron to the hospital of Tullins in the Isère, this hospital being referred to by the Rhône prefecture as a concentration camp in a document in his foreign persons dossier. He was freed following the decision of the screening commission on February 21st 1940.

We also find mention of the daughter of Rudolf and Léonie, Alice born in 1911. She was the wife of Paul Wortmann who was interned at Chambaran.
In a report of the Prefecture of the Rhône of January 24th 1940, inspector Thomas specified that Alice and her mother lived together at 6, rue Jean Marie Duclos and were rescued by the Israeli Committee of the rue Saint Catherine.
Léonie Taussig obtained dispensation from internment from the screening commission on May 27th 1970.

On 23rd April 1940 Rudolf obtained a residence permit as a “working refugee”. He held a contract for work as steelworker from the 19th of March, valid until 19th June. This permit was extended on several occasions until July 15th 1941.
Then things changed. The correctional court of Nice judged them in their absence for “clandestine entry into France” and condemned them on February 26th 1941 to one month’s imprisonment and a 100 Franc fine. Rudolf and Hans undertook their sentence at St Paul Prison in Lyons where they were entered onto the prison register on August 25th. They were freed on September 24th 1941.
They then declared their wish to emigrate to the United States where Alice had by then settled.
In fact Paul Wortmann and his wife managed to leave France for Portugal where they obtained a visa to enter American territory on March 8th 1941. See the manifest of passengers.

Their boat, the Carvalho Araujo, arrived in the port of New York on April 3rd 1941.
They traveled to Philadelphia.

The Taussig family, alas did not manage to get out of France. They were arrested during the roundups of the south zone in summer 1942, interned at Drancy where all three were deported to Auschwitz on September 2nd 1942 by convoy 27.

Leopold Wortmann

Leopold Wortmann is linked to the Taussig family through the marriage of his son Paul and their daughter Alice. They arrived in Lyons about twenty days before Hans and his parents. Born on July 19th 1871 in Scalice in Czechoslovakia, Leopold was 67 when he fled Vienna.
He arrived in France via Vintimiglia on June 8th 1939, armed with a German passport marked ‘J’, issued in Milan on November 23rd 1938.
His wife, Hermine Baloch, died on may 29th 1937; it seems probable that this man, suffering from a serious heart condition, did not go into exile alone, and as we know that Léonie, Hans and Rudolf Taussig arrived in France together, we can envisage that Léopold undertook this journey accompanied by his son and his daughter-in-law, Alice Taussig.
Physically weak and older than sixty-five, Leopold escaped internment whilst his son Paul was interned at Chambaran. From June 1939 to March 1940 he stayed at the same address as Léonie and Alice Taussig, 6, rue Jean Marie Duclos in Lyons and it is perhaps after the return of Rudolf Taussig to Loriol camp and perhaps also after the escape of his son and Alice Taussig for Portugal, that Leopold found himself housed by the Little Sisters of the Poor (Petites Sœurs des Pauvres), at 43 rue Henri Gorjus in Lyons. Not being able to work, Léopold was helped by the Jewish Committee of rue Sainte Catherine.
He warned the prefecture of his state of health and the impossibility of him leaving the area, and made a request for a residence permit for non-workers, which he was accorded and which was extended until his death on November 23rd 1940.