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Maria Schauer

Austrian, Righteous Among the Nations .

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 25, 2023
Entity authorityQ1784799
Source-derived summary

Maria Schauer was an Austrian recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations, after rescuing three Jews from deportation and possible death after Nazi occupation of Austria during World War II.

Rescuer

Schauer was living in Vienna when Nazi Germany took control of the city in 1938 and began persecuting Jews there.

Max Arnold who was a Jewish tailor living in the Pressbaum district, outside Vienna, Austria, received a message in 1942 from the Nazi authorities saying that he was required to move to Vienna and register at the offices of the Jewish community. Max did move to Vienna but chose not to register as required. While in Vienna, Arnold married his partner, Johanna. When the city-wide order was given to deport the Jews from Vienna, the couple chose instead to hide in the city along with Max's sister, Leopoldine Stern. They turned to Luci Pollreis (also spelled Lucia Pollreiss), a seamstress and businesswoman, who agreed to hire Max Arnold as a tailor, and help the three find a safe sanctuary. The three Jews moved between hiding places in Vienna from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945.

From September to April of each year, the three Jews hid successfully in Maria Schauer's home, but it was impossible for them to stay there during the summer months because of the presence of Schauer's regular house guest, who was a prominent Nazi. So, in the summertime, the refugees stayed with Pollreiss, who not only gave them a place to stay, but also supported them financially. Pollreiss’ husband, who served in the German army and only lived at home on vacations, demanded that she stop helping the Jews, but, despite his arguments, Pollreiss continued.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Maria Schauer” is austrian, Righteous Among the Nations . The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Maria, Schauer and Austrian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1938, 1942, 1945—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Maria, Schauer and Austrian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “austrian, Righteous Among the Nations ” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 25, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q1784799. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1942 and 1945.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Maria Schauer”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Maria Schauer primary sources, Maria Schauer archive and Maria research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Maria Schauer”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Maria Schauer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.