Karl Pfeifer (born 22 August 1928 in

Baden bei Wien Baden (German for " Baths"; Central Bavarian: ''Bodn''), unofficially distinguished from other Badens as Baden bei Wien (Baden near Vienna), is a spa town in Austria. It serves as the capital of Baden District in the state of Lower Austria. Loc ...

, near

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

) is an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

Life

Karl Pfeifer and his parents fled Austria in 1938 to Hungary, there he joined the

socialistic Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

youth organization HaschomerHatzair in 1940. Before the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

of Hungary in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in January 1943, he successfully escaped as one of 50 children after an adventurous way to

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

. There he lived in a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

, served from 1946 in the elite troop

Palmach The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Companies") was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach ...

and, after the foundation of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, he served in the

Israeli army The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branc ...

until 1950. In 1951, he returned to

. From 1982 to 1995, he was editor of the ''"Gemeinde"'', the official organ of the Israelitecult-community Vienna. In this function he wrote in an article in 1995, that the political scientist Werner Pfeifenberger had used "Nazi tones" in the yearbook of the freedom party academy. Karl Pfeifer said that Pfeifenberger had played the Nazi regime down and accused the

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

for being responsible for

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...

's war in 1933. Afterwards Pfeifer was sued by Pfeifenberger and acquitted in two instances. When in 2000, the Vienna public prosecutor brought charges of re-Nazi activity against Pfeifenberger, he committed suicide. The editor of the right magazine ''ZurZeit'', Andreas Mölzer, called Pfeifer then in a press release to its subscribers, to be part of a "hunting party" which had Pfeifenberger driven into suicide – The "Jewish journalist" had released the "legal avalanche against Pfeifenberger". In consequence, Pfeifer sued for compensation in the Austrian courts. On 15 November 2007, Pfeifer got under article 8 of the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...

right adjudicated – at the same time, the

Republic of Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine States of Austria, states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, th ...

was convicted to pay € 5,000 compensation for the failure of the courts. From the early 1990s, Pfeifer worked as a Vienna correspondent for Israeli radio and as a freelance journalist for the London monthly

anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

magazine ''

Searchlight A searchlight (or spotlight) is an apparatus that combines an extremely bright source (traditionally a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular direc ...

'' and the

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

weekly newspaper ''

Hetek Faith Church (Hit Gyülekezete) is an Evangelical charismatic Pentecostal Christian denomination and a megachurch in Hungary. The headquarters of Budapest has over 150,000 members. History Faith Church was founded in 1979 by a group of seven ...

''. Pfeifer also belongs to the board of trustees of the documentation archive of Austrian resistance. In 2008, Mary Kreutzer produced a documentary for the Society for Critical Research on Antisemitism about his life entitled ''Zwischen allen Stühlen.Lebenswege des Journalisten Karl Pfeifer''. It was shown in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy and Israel. In 2011, the film was shown in the presence of Karl Pfeifer at the Austrian Institute of the Minnesota University in Minneapolis and at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York.

Merits

* 2003: Joseph Samuel Bloch Medal from the Action against anti-Semitismin Austria * 2018

Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria The Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (german: Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria. It is divided into 15 classes and is the highest award in the A ...

in Gold * 2022 won

Simon Wiesenthal Simon Wiesenthal (31 December 190820 September 2005) was a history of the Jews in Austria, Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. He studied architecture and was living in Lwów at the outbreak of World War II. He surviv ...

award

References

https://archive.today/20130421031700/http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=39599§ioncode=1

External links

Essay: Antisemitism and the Austrian Left
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pfeifer, Karl 1928 births Living people Austrian Jews Jewish emigrants from Austria to Mandatory Palestine after the Anschluss Austrian expatriates in Hungary Austrian expatriates in Israel