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1942 POLICE / REICHSSTATTHALTER FILE OF A YOUNG JEWISH WOMAN ARRESTED FOR REPEATEDLY NOT WEARING HER STAR OF DAVID WHILE THE ARYAN WEHRMACHT OBERGEFREITER FATHER OF HER CHILDREN WAS SERVING AT LUFTGAU PARIS

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Above, part of the 1 April 1942 cover letter of Ref. Ia Pol. (Dr. Slavik) at the police department of the Reichsstatthalter's office, stapled to the Antonie Sara Pasternak criminal file.

This is a very interesting four-piece archival lot of correspondence from 1942 regarding a Jewish woman from Vienna, Antonie Pasternak, born 27 May 1921, who was arrested several times for not wearing her obligatory yellow Davidstern or Star of David, which had become a requirement of the law on 19 September 1941. The material shows how thorough the National Socialists were in making sure the laws of the land were being followed, and how many different agencies were involved in just this one interesting criminal case!

The grouping includes correspondence between the Reichsstatthalter Wien (the highest Nazi government authority in Vienna, Baldur von Schirach), the NSDAP Gauleitung Wien (the Nazi Party District Leadership of Vienna), Nazi Party Race offices and several Vienna police departments.

The original A4 size letter dated 20 March 1942 (shown avove) originating at the Racial Police Department of the NSDAP Gauleitung Wien and was sent to the State Administration Department of the Reichsstatthalter’s Office in Vienna. It states that Antonie Pasternak had repeatedly claimed to be a Mischling (of mixed Aryan and Jewish blood) and even 100% Aryan, and as a result the Vienna Gausippeamt had delved further into her background. The conclusion was that she was Jewish and would be required to wear a Judenstern.

The letter signed by Dr. Vellguth of the NSDAP Gauleitung Wien further urges local police authorities to make sure Pasternak stops her provocative behavior which was creating unrest among the residents of her neighborhood in the 12th District of Vienna, which was the second largest city in Adolf Hitler’s Greater Germany.

However, the conclusion of the NSDAP Gau Leadership of Vienna was that due to regulations in the Reichsbürgergesetz (the 1935 Nazi Nürnberg Racial Laws) Antonie Pasternak was to still be considered a Geltungsjude (the term for people who were considered Jews by the first supplementary decree to the Nuremberg Laws from 14 November 1935).

Shown below is the last piece in this Antonie Sara Pasternak file is a two-sided A4 letter from the Head of Police in Vienna, dated 17 July 1942. It was sent to the Department of Police within the Reichsstatthalter’s Office in Vienna, where it was received on 21 July 1942. The letter recaps the whole Pasternak case and Reichsstatthalter Baldur von Schirach’s decree regarding the matter.

The letter has a receiving stamp of the Reichstatthalter office at Ballhausplatz 2 in the upper right hand corner, showing it arrived on 26 March 1942. It also has a red Nazi eagle and swastika stamp of the NSDAP Gauleitung Wien next to Dr. Vellguth’s signature below his sign-off - Heil Hitler!

The Kriminalpolizei report mentions that complicit Aryan Germans involved in this matter were sentences to death and/or to long prison sentences! What specifically happened to Pasternak we do not know, but online we discovered information that her accomplice Adolf Israel Reich was deported to Mauthausen Concentration Camp on 23 August 1944. His date of death is also listed as 23 August 1944.

This 4-piece Third Reich archival lot is extremely rare and historic! It highlights the detailed work of the Vienna Police and Reichsstatthalter in cooperation with local Nazi Party Race Departments. With punch holes and original Third Reich staples, as rescued years ago from the original city archives of Vienna. See picture below for additional provenance.

During additional online research we found that Antonie Sara Pasternak’s father Benjamin Pasternak (born in Zborov, Poland on 28 November 1878) was arrested on 7 June 1940 for publicly “insulting” the Parteiabzeichen der NSDAP (probably the swastika flag), and was deported to Litzmannstadt in German occupied Poland on 15 October 1941.

While we were unable to determine when Antonie Sara Pasternak died, we did uncover a Vienna Criminal Police arrest record online showing that she and a Jew named Adolf Israel Reich were arrested on 30 May 1944 for repeatedly hiding deserters in her home. She had also hosted illegal gambling parties and items from burglaries were found in her home where they were being offered for sale.

The letter points out that Antonie Sara Pasternak had on several occasions objected to wearing her Star of David, and that she had been sentenced to six weeks in prison for the offense on 28 November 1941. However, she appealed the verdict stating that she was not raised by her biological (Jewish) father and Reichsstatthalter von Schirach gave her an option to prove her case until 1 June 1942.

It was further pointed out in the police letter that Pasternak was the mother of two small children, whose father had 100% German blood. The father of the children, Obergefreiter Gustav Amon was serving at Luftgaupost Paris (L 37984a) and had been taken to court for Rassenschande or racial defilement, but was eventually cleared of the charges. While not married, Pasternak lived with the mother of Amon and was in possession of a Jewish Kennkarte Qu 007106 issued by the Police Station of Vienna-Floridsdorf on 16 July 1941.

The conclusion was that, in agreement with the Central Office of Jewish Emigration, Antonie Sara Pasternak was sentenced to serve time in prison for not wearing her Star of David on numerous occasions. Her two mixed Jewish children were allowed to remain where they were, and it was decided they were not going to be resettled.