Photographs |
Collection of Raoul Korty
Author:
Margot Werner
Margot Werner
Raoul Korty, the man who collected the history of the world in three rooms
Raoul Korty was born in Vienna in 1889 into a Jewish banking family. From his earliest youth he was an ardent collector. When he was just five years old he began to collect family photos and portraits of prominent personalities of the late nineteenth century. After studying art, Korty served in the First World War as one of the few civilians in the 5th Hussar Regiment. It was at this time that he developed his passion for the military and monarchy, as reflected by his photo collection. Although he enjoyed an international reputation as a collector, Korty was described by his father as a Bohemian and good-for-nothing who seldom worked for a living. He also took photos himself and owned a share in the Georgette photo studio in Vienna. He financed his collecting passion above all through his work as a journalist and by lending his picture archive to international media.
After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938, Korty’s friends advised him to leave at once, but he himself underestimated the danger. He is quoted as saying: “I have held the emperor’s coat tails. I’m not afraid of Hitler.”
In 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo, presumably as the result of a betrayal, and deported shortly afterwards to Theresienstadt and then in October 1944 to Auschwitz. He did not live to see the liberation of the camp in January 1945, but the precise date of his death is unknown.
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Raoul Korty was born in Vienna in 1889 into a Jewish banking family. From his earliest youth he was an ardent collector. When he was just five years old he began to collect family photos and portraits of prominent personalities of the late nineteenth century. After studying art, Korty served in the First World War as one of the few civilians in the 5th Hussar Regiment. It was at this time that he developed his passion for the military and monarchy, as reflected by his photo collection. Although he enjoyed an international reputation as a collector, Korty was described by his father as a Bohemian and good-for-nothing who seldom worked for a living. He also took photos himself and owned a share in the Georgette photo studio in Vienna. He financed his collecting passion above all through his work as a journalist and by lending his picture archive to international media.
After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938, Korty’s friends advised him to leave at once, but he himself underestimated the danger. He is quoted as saying: “I have held the emperor’s coat tails. I’m not afraid of Hitler.”
In 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo, presumably as the result of a betrayal, and deported shortly afterwards to Theresienstadt and then in October 1944 to Auschwitz. He did not live to see the liberation of the camp in January 1945, but the precise date of his death is unknown.
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