Irmentraud Fleissig Durfee – Detailed Bullet-Point Notes

Early Life & Family Background

• Born $July\ 6,\ 1925$ in Vienna, Austria (20th district)

• Birth name: Irmentraud (Traudy) Fleissig

• Parents

  • Father: Karl Fleissig (Jewish; youngest of 4 siblings)

  • Profession: sign-painter / glass & neon sign shop owner

  • Military family background; father Heinrich served $20$ yrs in Austro-Hungarian army

  • Mother: Josephine (Josefine) Baumann (Catholic; 14th of 14 daughters)

  • Severe vision impairment (blind in one eye; limited vision in the other)

• Siblings

  • Heinrich (“Heinze”) I: born $1927$, died $1932$ of diphtheria

  • Heinrich (“Heinze”) II: born $1934$, chronically ill (collapsed lung, tuberculosis); died age $27$

• Extended family

  • Maternal grandparents: Leonard & Irmengard Marie Baumann (grandfather a baker with horse-drawn delivery)

  • Paternal grandparents: Heinrich & Teresa Fleissig (grandfather synagogue shamash; both originally from Eisenstadt; family roots Poland/Hungary)

  • Eight surviving Baumann aunts; several interfaith marriages (3 sisters married Jewish men)

Home & Living Conditions in Vienna (1920s–30s)

• Original flat: 20th district, Kluckigasse ➜ later moved to Traunfelsgasse

• Five-story stone apartment house; family on European 2nd floor (US 3rd)

• Layout: 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room; no indoor plumbing

  • Shared hallway toilets (2 for 4 apartments)

  • Cold-water faucet in hallway; water carried inside & heated on gas stove (3 burners + oven)

  • Bathing: portable tub or weekly trips to public "Tropfelbad" showers

• Heating: decorative tiled coke/coal stove (wood stored in hall chest)

• Utilities

  • Electricity + gas for cooking

  • No telephone (used street booths)

  • Radio & Victrola – family listened to opera/operetta records; frequent standing-room visits to Vienna State Opera & theaters (1 schilling tickets)

• Transport

  • Family acquired motorcycle & side-car (late $1930s$) and eventually a car (~$1937$)

Religious & Cultural Life

• Interfaith household celebrated both Jewish and Catholic holidays

  • Passover & Hanukkah with paternal grandparents

  • Christmas & Easter with maternal grandparents

  • Traudy enjoyed "double" gifts

• Grandparents’ initial opposition to mixed marriage; paternal side largely unreconciled yet doted on grandchildren

• Family outings: Vienna Woods picnics, Grimm’s fairy-tale readings by mother, neighborhood gatherings around stove

Education (1931–1938)

• Entered local Hochschule (girls’ section) at age $6$ (first–eighth grade)

• Class size ≈ $45$–$50$ students; $20$-min walk from home

• Studied piano (family owned instrument) & English (private tutor; father joined lessons)

• School life described as happy until March $1938$ (Anschluss)

Anschluss & Immediate Changes (March $1938$)

• Overnight transformation: swastikas, “Heil Hitler,” antisemitic slogans everywhere

• In school

  • Forced segregation: Jewish children right rows, Christian left, 2 "Mischlinge" (Traudy + Heidi Kowall) isolated center front

  • Friends turned hostile – spitting, insults; teachers complicit

• Father’s workshop confiscated next morning; Gestapo seized keys; two Jewish employees dismissed

• Bank accounts of all Jews frozen/confiscated; family left with minimal cash ➜ food scarcity

• Required to sew yellow Star of David on coats (father, Traudy, brother)

Progressive Persecution (1938–1941)

• Kristallnacht (Nov $9–10, 1938$)

  • SA & SS smashed store windows; burned all but one Vienna synagogues; churches also damaged

• Establishment of “open ghetto” – 2nd district (Leopoldstadt)

  • Jewish families ordered to relocate $1939$; Fleissigs moved to 4th-floor furnished flat (still hallway toilet)

  • Non-Jewish mother could have stayed by divorcing Karl; refused

• Rationing

  • Only non-Jewish Josephine received food cards; others unofficially relied on barter, odd jobs, black market

• Mother conscripted to peel vegetables in army soup-kitchen (barracks/kaserne); paid minimally, allowed to take potato & apple peels ➜ nightly potato-peel soup

• Traudy (age $14$) job search

  • Rejected everywhere once Star seen

  • Hired by Hungarian Nazi Johann Gabalis in beauty salon; cycled 1.5 hrs daily (borrowed bike)

  • From $12$–$2$, salon closed: Gabalis repeatedly raped/sexually abused her ($1.5$ yrs, ages $14–16$) under threat of Gestapo

Forced Labor & Bombing (1940–1944)

• $1940$: Gestapo ordered her to WATT-Fabrik (lamp plant repurposed for submarine parts)

  • Night shift $18{:}00$–$06{:}00$; soldering with protective mask

  • Paid only bus fare; majority co-workers non-Jewish women; Jewish “slave-labor” contingent

  • Daily air-raids: British noon; American midnight

• “Angel” incident (~$1944$)

  • During bunker alarm, overseer summoned Traudy to another dept. to meet former classmate Hedda Thorne

  • Original department hit; all colleagues killed; later discovered Hedda had actually died months earlier – perceived as miraculous intervention

Arrest & Murder of Father (1941)

• Gestapo summons Karl for "work detail" (actually arrest)

• While mother & children waited at park, Traudy sent inside HQ to enquire; raped by four Gestapo men (age $16$)

• Karl imprisoned in Gestapo jail behind HQ; postcards beg for bread & clothes

• Transferred to Warsaw Ghetto, then Auschwitz (confirmed by scrap of cloth thrown from train, delivered by Polish rail worker)

• SS notice falsely declared death $Dec\ 3/5,\ 1941$; actual death later in Auschwitz gas chamber

  • Family friend Mr. Seymour (Jewish Sonderkommando) survived; returned $1945$ with mother’s wedding ring – had placed Karl’s body into crematory

• Mother attempted suicide via gas hose upon notice; saved by neighbor

Hiding Period (1941–1945)

• For safety after HQ rape, mother placed Traudy with Christian friend Mrs. (Trude) Fullita in rural Mauer (Vienna outskirts)

  • Lived under alias as niece; shared bed with daughter Gertrude

  • Stayed indoors by day; only yard at night; remained ~$3.5$ yrs

  • Mother visited weekly with food bought from black-market sale of father’s clothes

• Heinze (age 5–9) left alone after school until mother returned; progressively ill & malnourished

• Russian troops enter Vienna $April\ 1945$

  • Mass rapes; mother victimized; convent nuns next-door assaulted; Traudy initially sheltered in attic with other girls until U.S. forces imposed order

Post-War Vienna (1945–1947)

• Traudy became English interpreter at U.S. Officers’ Hotel Regina

  • Collected unfinished meals & coffee → vital family nourishment

  • Met Generals Eisenhower & Mark Clark

• Sought escape from trauma & antisemitic environment

Emigration & Personal Life

• Met U.S. soldier Robert Dussault; married $Aug\ 1947$ as WWII war bride; moved to U.S.

  • Discovered husband alcoholic; marriage unhappy; daughter Lili Marleen born; divorced after >3 yrs (legal obstructions to travel with child)

• Second marriage 1960 to Gardner Durfee (Protestant)

  • Marriage of $56$ yrs; deep mutual affection (“soulmates”); traveled & camped extensively, visited Israel $10$ times; Gardner loved Jewish heritage

• Mother received restitution lump sum & pension; died $1978$ (age $80$) in Vienna; Traudy navigated complex re-burial due to European grave-rental laws

• Brother Heinze died $1950s$ (age $27$, TB)

• Traudy became U.S. citizen; eventually legally blind; active speaker in churches & schools (first detailed testimony only few years before 2017 interview)

Photographs & Documents (described during interview)

• Parents’ formal portrait $1938$ & civil wedding photo $1924$

• Paternal grandparents’ service & civilian photos

• Maternal grandmother Irma Baumann photograph

• $1938$ 7th-grade class photo (Traudy marked with “X”)

• Traudy age $19$ portrait ($1944$–$45$)

• SS death notice & refusal to release ashes

• Three postcards from father in Vienna Gestapo jail requesting bread/cloths

Key Timeline

• $1925$ – Birth

• $1931–38$ – Elementary/Middle school

• $Mar\ 1938$ – Anschluss; segregation; business confiscated

• $Nov\ 1938$ – Kristallnacht

• $1939$ – Forced move to Leopoldstadt

• $1940$ – Slave labor at WATT-Fabrik

• $1941$ – Father arrested; Traudy raped at HQ; begins hiding

• $1945$ – Liberation; interpreter for U.S. Army

• $1947$ – Emigrates & marries Robert Dussault

• $1960$ – Marries Gardner Durfee

• $1978$ – Mother’s death; Vienna burial issue

• $2013$ – Gardner’s death

• $2017$ – Oral history at age $92$

Thematic Reflections & Implications

• Interfaith Marriage Risks & Protections: Initial delay in persecution offset by intensified later danger; mother’s steadfast loyalty

• Childhood Disruption: abrupt loss of friends, security, education; psychological trauma from repeated sexual violence & hiding

• Moral Choices: rescuer Mrs. Fullita risked life; Sonderkommando friend burdened with impossible coercion

• Survival & Fate: Multiple near-deaths (bombing “angel” incident) illustrate randomness; Traudy attributes survival to divine purpose

• Post-War Justice & Memory: Perpetrator Gabalis executed by Soviet forces; decades-long silence within family until late-life testimony

Numerical / Statistical Notes

• Vienna districts: $25$ (family in $20^{th}$, later $2^{nd}$)

• Apartment toilets ratio: $2$ per $4$ flats

• School class size ≈ $45–50$ pupils

• Beauty-parlor abuse period ≈ $1.5$ yrs (ages $14–16$)

• Forced-labor shift length $12$ hrs (night)

• Marriage durations: first ≈ $3$ yrs; second $56$ yrs