When an unsung Indian helped Austrian Jews escape the Nazis

BBC News

18 hours ago

"Let me tell you a secret. Your nana (grandfather) helped Jewish families escape the Nazis."That single sentence from his mother set Vinay Gupta off on a journey into his grandfather's past. What he unearthed was a tale more gripping than fiction: a little-known act of heroism by an Indian businessman who risked everything to save strangers in Europe's darkest hour.This wasn't just compassion; it was logistics, risk, and resolve. Back in India, Kundanlal set up a businesses to employ Jews, built homes to house them - only to watch the British declare them as "enemy aliens" and detain them once Word War Two broke out.Kundanlal's life reads like an epic: a poor boy from Ludhiana, married at 13, who sold everything from timber and salt to lab gear and bullock-cart wheels. He also ran a clothing business and a matchstick factory. He topped his class in Lahore - joining the colonial civil service at 22, only to resign from it all to participate in the freedom movement and a life of building factories.He shook hands with Indian independence leader and later its first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and crossed paths with actress Devika Rani on a steamer to Europe.In A Rescue In Vienna, a family memoir, Gupta uncovers his grandfather's extraordinary Indian rescue on foreign soil - pieced together through family letters, survivor interviews, and historical records.In the shadow of Hitler's 1938 annexation of Austria, Kundanlal, a machine tool manufacturer from Ludhiana city in the northern state of Punjab, quietly offered Jewish professionals jobs in India to get them life-saving visas. He offered work, provided livelihood and build homes for those families in India. Kundanlal rescued five families.Fritz Weiss, a 30-year-old Jewish lawyer, was hiding in a hospital, feigning illness. Kundanlal was also in the same hospital to get treatment for an illness. After Nazis forced Weiss to clean the streets outside his own home, Kundanlal handed him a lifeline: a job offer at the fictitious "Kundan Agencies." It got him a visa to India.Alfred Wachsler, a master woodworker, met Kundanlal while bringing his pregnant wife for tests. Promised a future in furniture and a sponsor for emigration, his family became one of the Jewish households to reach India between January 1938 and February 1939. Hans Losch, a textile technician, answered Kundanlal's advert in an Austrian paper for skilled workers. Offered a managerial role at the imaginary "Kundan Cloth Mills" in Ludhiana - with housing, profit share, and safe passage - he seized the chance to start over.Alfred Schafranek, once owner of a 50-employee plywood factory, pitched his skills to Kundanlal and was offered a role in building India's most modern plywood unit. His entire family, including his mechanic brother Siegfried, was rescued.And Siegmund Retter, a machine tools businessman, was among the first Kundanlal approached. As his business collapsed under Nazi rule, Kundanlal began arranging his move to India to start again.
It all began with a hospital bed in Vienna. Struggling with diabetes and hemorrhoids, Kundanlal, then 45, sought new treatments and read about a specialist in Vienna. In 1938, while recovering from surgery there, he met Lucy and Alfred Wachsler, a young couple expecting their first child. From them, he learned of rising antisemitic violence and the destruction of Jewish lives. Over the next few months, he met other men. Encouraged by this success, Kundanlal placed newspaper adverts seeking skilled workers willing to relocate to India. Among the respondents were Wachsler, Losch, Schafranek and Retter. Kundanlal offered each a job, financial guarantees, and support to secure Indian visas."A striking aspect of all of Kundanlal's elaborate scheming on behalf of these families was how close mouthed he remained, keeping up appearances of technology transfer to India until the very end," Gupta writes. "He did not share his intent or plans with any Indian or British officials. His family learned of his plans only when he returned home months later." In October 1938, Losch became the first of Kundanlal's recruits to arrive in Ludhiana. He was welcomed into Kundanlal's home - but found little comfort in the quiet town, writes Gupta. With no Jewish community, no cultural life, and a struggling cloth mill, Losch left within weeks for Bombay (now Mumbai), citing poor working conditions and little chance of profit. He never returned.Weiss lasted even less - just under two months. The company created for him, Kundan Agencies, never took off. He soon moved to Bombay, found work in flooring, and by 1947 had relocated to England. Despite their departures, Kundanlal bore no resentment, writes Gupta."My aunt told me that on the contrary, Kundanlal had been embarrassed that he could not provide a lifestyle and social environment more suited to Vienna, and felt that if he had, the two men may have stayed on in Ludhiana."
Not all stories ended this way.Alfred and Lucy Wachsler, with their infant son, arrived by sea, rail, and road - finally stepping off the train at Ludhiana. They moved into a spacious home Kundanlal built for them next door to another, prepared for the Schafraneks. Alfred quickly set up a furniture workshop, using Burmese teak and local Sikh labour to craft elegant dining sets - one of which still survives in the author's family.In March 1939, Alfred Schafranek, his brother Siegfried, and their families arrived from Austria. They launched one of India's earliest plywood factories in a shed behind the two homes. Driven and exacting, Alfred pushed untrained workers hard, determined to build something lasting. Gupta writes, the work was intense, the Punjab heat unfamiliar, and the isolation palpable - especially for the women, confined mostly to domestic life.As the months passed in Ludhiana, the initial relief gave way to boredom. The men worked long hours, while the women, limited by language and isolation, kept to household routines. In September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. Days later, Britain declared war on Germany - the British parliament pulled India into the conflict. Over 2.5 million Indians would serve in the war, 87,000 never returned.In Ludhiana, the reality of war hit fast.
By 1940, new policies ordered all German nationals - Jewish or not - into internment camps. The Wachsler and Schafranek families were forcibly relocated to the Purandhar Internment Camp near Poona (now Pune), housed in bare barracks with kerosene lamps and minimal comforts. They had committed no crime - only carried the wrong passport.Eventually, release became possible - if they could find paid work. Alfred and Siegfried Schafranek secured roles managing a new plywood business in Bangalore and moved there with their families, starting all over again. The Wachsler family left the camp in 1942 after Alfred found a job in Karachi. The two families never met again.Purandhar Camp closed in 1946, nearly a year after the war ended. In 1948, Alfred Wachsler's cousin sponsored US refugee visas for the family. That October, they flew out of Karachi, never to return to India. The Schafraneks relocated to Australia in 1947 after a successful plywood venture in Bangalore.While researching the book, Gupta met Alex Wachsler - whose father, Alfred, had also built the Burmese teak desk Kundanlal once used in his tiny 120 sq ft office. (Alfred died in 1973.)"Despite living in US since the age of 10, and now into his eighties, Alex Wachsler still pines for his life in India, eats at Indian restaurants, delights in meeting Indians and surprises them with his knowledge of Urdu," writes Gupta.Back in Ludhiana, Kundanlal opened a school for his daughters at home, soon expanding it into one of Punjab's oldest schools - still running today with 900 students. His wife, Saraswati, grew increasingly withdrawn and battled depression.Kundanlal and Saraswati had five children, including four daughters. In 1965, Saraswati died after a tragic fall from their terrace. She spent her final years in silence, emotionally distanced from the family. Kundanlal passed away a year later, aged 73, from a heart attack. "The notion of a 'passive bystander' was anathema to Kundanlal. If he saw something, or someone, that required attention, he attended to it, never intimidated by the enormity of the problem," writes Gupta.A fitting epitaph for a man whose legacy was not just business, but quiet defiance, compassion, and conviction.