Karl Gröger

Karl Gröger (; 7 February 1918 - 1 July 1943) was a member of a Dutch resistance group executed in 1943.

In collaboration with a Dutch resistance group, he destroyed the registration of address office of Amsterdam, thereby destroying file cards of Dutch people which would have faced forced labour and deportation to concentration camps.

In 1943 the SS and police court sentenced him to death in The Hague.

He was given the title "Righteous Among the Nations" in 1986 by Yad Vashem.

Family

Karl Gröger was born 7 February 1918 in Vienna, Austria, to Frieda Neuhauser Groeger and Karl Groeger.

His mother, Frieda (9/03/1887 Vinkovcze,(?)Croatia. d. 1975, Chicago, Il. U S A.), was the child of two Jewish parents, Josef Neuhauser and Karolina Neuhauser nee Spitzer. Frieda had herself baptized as Roman Catholic in order to further her budding career as an opera singer. She appeared as a Valkyrie in Wagner's most famous opera at the Stadtsopera in Vienna in 1914.

His father was Karl Groeger (1883, Vienna, Austria 1883.d. 1967, Chicago, Il.U.S.A.). Karl Groeger Sr. was the son of a Jewish mother, Anna, and a Gentile father. He was also baptized at some point, but a Taufschein or baptism certificate has been lost. Karl Sr. studied law and became a high profile attorney in Viennese society, sometimes representing men who would later become known Nazis during the Third Reich.

Freida and Karl Sr. had two children; Karl Jr or ' Munkie" and four years later, a daughter, Marianne, who died at age three in a Typhus epidemic.

Student life

He participated in the association of social democratic high school students. After that he studied medicine at the University of Vienna. Following his graduation in March 1938, Gröger fled to Amsterdam, where he continued his medicine study.

War years Karl Jr. 1941, after being inducted into the German army as a Physician Officer. Two years later, in May 1940, the German Wehrmacht marched into the Netherlands. He had to join the German Army. After some months the army discharged him because he was discovered to be of Jewish descent.

Unbeknownst to the Germans, Karl (Bubie as he was known to friends and Munkie as he was known to his parents), was the product of a full Jewish mother (who converted into the Catholic faith in 1911) and of a half-Jewish father. Their son, Karl Gröger, Jr. was actually baptized into the Catholic faith at birth.

Resistance activities

Gröger joined the resistance movement of Gerrit van der Veen, a sculptor. Karl also worked for the underground newspaper "Rattenkruit" (rat poison).

Following the 1940 German invasion and occupation of the Netherlands, everyone aged 15 and older was required to carry an identification card, the persoonsbewijs, with them at all times. Jews had to carry a persoonsbewijs marked with a large J. Resistance members soon started to forge identification cards at a large scale – the largest such operation, led by Gerrit van der Veen, produced some 80,000 forged documents. However, forged documents could be easily detected because they could be compared against the records in the civil registries. Some civil servants were willing to falsify records in the civil registry so that they would match up with forged identification cards. Nevertheless, the civil registries remained a potent weapon in the hands of the Nazis to identify members of the Dutch population who were Jewish, potential members of the resistance or could be called up for forced labour duty.