Abstract (eng)
The thesis ",Life Devotion' - The female employees of the Archiepiscopal Auxiliary Office for non-Aryan Catholics in Vienna" deals with the biographies and the self-understanding of the full-time and part-time female employees of the by Cardinal Innitzer initiated Auxiliary Office for Catholics who were affected by the Nuremberg racial laws. The auxiliary office existed from the end of 1940 until spring of 1946. Over the years there was a total of 23 full-time and part-time co-workers who were under the direction of Father Ludger Born SJ.
In addition to biographical information on the women and their families, especially their respective field of activity and their tasks in the Auxiliary Office are illuminated – how they organized their work in emigration matters, in the (material) welfare and pastoral care, how they communicated with each other, what was the spiritual life of the Auxiliary Office like? For this purpose, the central question is their motivation to work for the Auxiliary Office.
With the danger of arrest by the Gestapo or denunciation among others always in view, the following questions are subject of research: Did they see themselves in constant threat and how did they, in order, get along with this feeling? Where did their spiritual power come from? Finally the question is illuminated, how far they understood their work as an act of resistance or whether their activity can be considered as such.
At the beginning of the work an overview of the situation of the non-Aryan Catholics in Vienna is given. After an overview of the preorganisations for the aid of non-Aryan Catholics the circumstances of the establishment of the Archbishop Auxiliary Office for non-Aryan Catholics are described. This is followed by a comprehensive treatment of the tasks of the Auxiliary Office and their affected area, including the Theresienstadt concentration camp, then the cooperation with other institutions and the network of donors, informants and benefactors, including the relationship with the Vatican and Pope Pius XII.
As for the scale and scope of the ancillary campaign, a chapter deals with the specific figures on the number of the auxiliary receivers and the spent funds.
The central source of this work, in addition to the published literature on this topic, are the acts of the Archiepiscopal Auxiliary Office for non-Aryan Catholics, which are stored in the Diocesan Archives of the Archdiocese of Vienna, and the files from the estate of P. Born, which are stored there too.