Metadata: Estate of Franz Zürni
Collection
- Country:
- Switzerland
- Holding institution:
- Archives of Contemporary History at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiv für Zeitgeschichte der ETH Zürich
- Postal address:
- Hirschengraben 62, CH-8092 Zurich
- Phone number:
- +41 44 632 40 03
- Web address:
- https://www.afz.ethz.ch/
- Email:
- afz@history.gess.ethz.ch
- Reference number:
- NL Franz Zürni
- Title:
- Estate of Franz Zürni
- Title (official language):
- Einzelbestand Franz Zürni
- Creator/accumulator:
- Zürni, Franz
- Date(s):
- 1914/1999
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 0.01 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection includes a number of documents, photographs and individual items relating to Zürni's first mission in occupied Germany in 1945/46, as well as documents and evidence of interviews given by Franz Zürni on the events of the time. It also contains photos from the Mauthausen and Buchenwald concentration camps.
- Archival history:
- The collection was transferred to the AfZ (Archives of Contemporary History) in 1999.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Franz Zürni was born in 1912. For 40 years he was a lorry driver at the Welti-Furrer company. From 1939 to 1945, he worked as a driver for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which put him on duty as a lorry driver for CARE shipments to the prisoner-of-war and concentration camps at the end of war. In May 1945, he made his first trip with about ten drivers via St. Margrethen to Germany under Swiss command. After arriving at the Mauthausen concentration camp (23 May 1945) and unloading the food, he returned to Linz; later he transported liberated concentration camp inmates and journeyed onward to large reception camps in Bregenz. There were further operations in Theresienstadt, in prison camps in Bavaria, to Flotow an der Weeser, Bad Oehnhausen and other prison camps in the British Zone. Franz Zürni was on duty for the ICRC for a total of about nine months, after which he returned to his position with the Welti-Furrer company. During the Hungarian crisis in 1956, he continued to work as a driver for the Swiss Red Cross.
- Access points: locations:
- Germany
- Switzerland
- Subject terms:
- Holocaust
- Holocaust--Concentration camps
- Finding aids:
- An online finding aid is available.
- Links to finding aids:
- http://onlinearchives.ethz.ch/
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Hohenems
- Author of the description:
- Severin Holzknecht; Jewish Museum of Hohenems; 2020