Project origins

    The idea of starting a project about Julius Madritsch was born, when we were working on our first project named "Permeation-Przenikanie". During this work we contacted, Ron Unger from New York, who was living in Tarnów during the Second World War.  He said that he had been working with his father in Madritsch’s factory, which manufactured uniforms for the German army. Ron said that work for Madritsch saved his and his father’s lives. Having learned that, we decided to find out more about this mysterious entrepreneur. We started to research various information about Madritsch’s activity during the Second World War. It turned out that for his deeds Julius Madritsch after the war received the title of the Righteous Among The Nations awarded by Yad Vashem to gentiles for saving Jews, but in Tarnow nobody heard about him.We decided to create a project in order to bring back the memory of both the Austrian industrialist and the Jews saved by him.

Ron Unger

    We started with research on the internet to find references about Madritsch and his factories.We found out that, apart from the workshops in Tarnów, there were similar workshops in Krakow, on Podgorze, in Bochnia and even in Piwniczna. It is estimated that Madritsch could rescue up to 4 thousand Jews. It means that he saved more people than Oskar Schindler. Also we found the lists of workers from the Tarnow’s factories. That helped us to discover that there were two workshops in Tarnow  one in the Lembergstrasse 7 (now it’s called Lwowska Street) and in Bernardyńska 5.
     To our surprise, we found that Julius Madritsch and his factory in the Plaszow labour camp is showed in one of the scenes in the movie “Schindler’s List”, and in the book “Schindler’s Ark”. The author mentions the plants in Tarnów too.
    We also got in touch with Mrs Margot Schlesinger, who first worked in Madritsh’s factory in Tarnow and then she was taken to Plaszow. She is one of the few still living persons who was on the famous Schindler’s List.
Also, we found that Julius Madritsch is appearing in many memories of survivors of Holocaust  both recorded in the videos and written in the books.

In the course of Tarnow Jews Memory Days, on June 18, 2017 at 8 p.m we will present our findings during the presentation called “Madritsch - forgotten Tarnow’s Schindler”, which will take place in Sztyler Gallery. We are pleased to invite you to this presentation