Franz Peter (François Pierre) Lampl

• Born on: 25.1.1916
• Birthplace: Vienna (Wien),
• Category: Diploma program
• Right of domicile: Eisgrub (Lednice),

The English version is based on a translation by Artificial Intelligence. The authentic version is considered to be the German text.

Franz Peter was the son of the businesswoman Alice (born May 20, 1894, as Alice Boschan) and the factory manager and farmer Dr. jur. Jakob Lampl (born November 30, 1880), who married in 1915 in the Leopoldstadt Synagogue on Tempelgasse (2nd District of Vienna).

Franz Peter was enrolled at the University for World Trade for four semesters between the winter semester of 1936/37 and the summer semester of 1938. As early as 1935, he joined the Viennese Academic Corps Marchia under the color name Zapfl. This student association, founded in November 1888 as an "academic social club" and whose members met at Café Colonnaden (Rathausplatz 4, 1st District of Vienna), was one of the few "parity" corps that were open to Jews as well as non-Jews (Doeberl et al. 1931, p. 1066). At that time, the Marchia was considered to be German-liberal, meaning it had a national-liberal stance, and was a student corporation with arms. By joining the Marchia, Franz Peter followed the example of his father Jakob and his uncle Dr. jur. Otto Lampl (who died in August 1934 in Nikolsburg/Mikulov), who joined the Marchia in 1899 and 1904 respectively (color names Lampus and Otho).

Although the Jewish student was officially credited with the summer semester of 1938, the first (general) examination was the last exam Franz Peter Lampl could take at the University for World Trade. He did so on February 15, 1938. With the 'Anschluss' of Austria, his studies in Vienna ended abruptly and prematurely. At the same time, his parents became victims of 'Aryanization': The father had to resign from his position as president, and his mother had to give up her membership on the board of the Wiener Nauseawerke AG for iron and metal industry. As will be explained below, they would later become victims of the Shoah.

In mid-June 1938, Franz Peter Lampl left the family home at Hohen Warte 48 (19th District of Vienna). He then went to Lundenburg/Břeclav - a town in Czechoslovakia that was soon incorporated into the Greater German Reich based on the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938.

It is presumed that he fled to France. However, Jews were not safe from National Socialism here either, as France was invaded by the Greater German Reich on May 10, 1940, during the Western Campaign and was largely occupied by the German Wehrmacht. Thus, Franz Peter Lampl, who presumably had learned the profession of tinsmith in the meantime and resided in the village of Marmande (Département Lot et Garonne), again fell into the machinery of Nazi persecution. At the instigation of the commander of the security police in Paris, Helmut Knochen, he was arrested and initially taken to the transit camp Royallieu near Compiègne (Département Oise). From there, Lampl was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp on January 27, 1944, along with nearly 1,600 other men. The journey lasted almost two days. As reported decades later by the French medical student André Fournier, who was also part of this transport, the newly arrived prisoners had to spend their first night in Buchenwald in the middle of winter on the bare ground of the roll call square before they were registered the next morning.

In the KZ Buchenwald , Franz Peter Lampl received the prisoner number 44240, and he was housed in Block 48. Notably, Lampl was not interned by the Nazis because of his Jewish heritage. Instead, the camp administration's records listed him as a Catholic and categorized him in relation to his place of birth as a “Political Czech.” To what extent he had participated in the resistance against the Nazi regime up to his arrest is unknown. Although Franz Peter was fluent in German, he ostentatiously signed a (of course, German-language) concentration camp form with the French version of his first name: François Pierre. According to official entries in the camp administration's files, the clothing items, including a tie, were reportedly destroyed "through enemy action," as was the clarinet that Lampl had brought in a backpack. As entries in his medical record card indicate, he was imprisoned in Buchenwald at least until July 1944. It is not clear when he was released, as the surviving documents do not show this. It is also unknown to what extent he was used for forced labor during his time in the camp. Since he was not classified as a privileged prisoner by the camp administration, it is certain that he was subjected to the same “process of systematic degradation” with its radically inadequate and brutal living and working conditions as his 277,800 fellow sufferers who were interned in Buchenwald between July 1937 and April 1945 (Löffelsender 2025, pp. 72 and 151).

After the liberation, Franz Peter Lampl stayed in Vienna for a week in April 1946 - coming from Paris. During this time, he had a certificate of the first examination issued to him by the 'University for World Trade' that he had taken over eight years earlier. Until April 30, 1946, he found accommodation in a hostel of the Vienna Traffic Association on Kandlgasse 30 (7th District of Vienna).

Franz Peter Lampl undertook a trip to Cuba and the USA, but ultimately chose France as his focal point. Here, he completed a degree with the title “Licencié ès lettres.” At the beginning of the 1950s, he took on French citizenship. He earned his living as a tour guide in Paris and its surroundings, but also in other regions of France and Spain. Thanks to his multilingualism (German, French, English, Spanish, Italian, and Czech), he was able to offer tours to tourists from different countries. His profession also benefited from his wide range of interests and hobbies (history, art, literature, philately). Lampl lived in Vizelay (13 Rue Massenet), not even five kilometers from the Palace of Versailles, but regularly spent time in Germany and Austria between December and February to prepare trips for the subsequent year. His son Thierry describes him as a man who rarely let annoyance arise and preferred sarcasm.

In 1954, Franz Peter Lampl married Eliane Duquenne, who was born on July 15, 1927, in Armancourt (Département Oise) and died at the age of 85 on December 17, 2012, in Chesnay-Rocquencourt (Département Yvelines). He himself passed away on January 31, 1997, at the age of 81.

The parents of Franz Peter Lampl fell victim to the Shoah. Alice and Jakob were deported on December 5, 1941, with Transport K from Brno (Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) to the Theresienstadt/Terezín ghetto (also located in the protectorate). From there, they were transported on January 15, 1942, with Transport P, which, like Transport K, included about 1,000 Jewish prisoners, further to Riga (General District of Latvia). The journey lasted a torturous five days and took place under inhumane conditions: The deportees received no fresh air and had almost no food, and the hygienic conditions were brutal (cf. Löw 2023). Whether Alice and Jakob were shot immediately after the arrival of the train at the station Štírova, whether they were driven into the Riga ghetto, or taken to the camps Jungfernhof/Jumpravmuiža or Salaspils, whether they were assigned to forced labor, or whether they - if they were still alive at this time - were transferred to the concentration camp Riga-Kaiserwald established in 1943, and when and under what circumstances they were murdered is unknown. It is possible that Jakob Lampl was among those transferred from Riga to the concentration camp Auschwitz/Oświęcim in 1943. The fact is that the parents of the ‘University for World Trade’ student Franz Peter Lampl did not survive the end of the war.

Author: Johannes Koll
Research support: Harald Seewann

Source material

Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Universitätsarchiv, Studierendenkarteikarte, Alte Prüfungsliste und Protokoll über die erste (allgemeine) Prüfung an der Hochschule für Welthandel, Bd. 4, Bl. 21.
Wiener Akademisches Corps Marchia 1888–1988. Festschrift zur Feier des zweihundertsten Semesters, Wien 1988, Corpsliste, Nr. 167 (Franz Peter), 42 (Jakob) und 55 (Otto).
Doeberl, Michael/Otto Scheel/Wilhelm Schlink/Hans Sperl/Eduard Spranger/Hans Bitter/Paul Frank: Das akademische Deutschland, Bd. 2: Die deutschen Hochschulen und ihre akademischen Bürger, Berlin 1931.
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Compass. Finanzielles Jahrbuch 1938. Personenverzeichnis, 71. Jg., Wien 1938, S. 704 f.
Meldeauskunft des Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchivs, GZ MA 8 – B-MEW – 669162/2013.
Fondation pour la mémoire de la déportation: Livre mémorial, http://www.bddm.org/liv/index_liv.php [4. August 2021].
Arolsen Archives, Sign. 01010503 oS, Franz Peter Lampl, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/search/ [4. August 2021].
Michael Löffelsender: Das Konzentrationslager Buchenwald 1937 bis 1945, hrsg. von der Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora, Göttingen 2025.
Andrea Löw: Die „Hölle“ bezeugen. Frühe Berichte überlebender deutscher Jüdinnen und Juden aus Riga, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 71 (2023), S. 155-207.
Yad Vashem: The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names zu Alice Lamplova (ID 4864363) und Dr. Jakub Lampl (ID 4881996), https://yvng.yadvashem.org/index.html?language=de [30. Juli 2021].
Mitteilungen von Thierry Lampl (Sohn von Franz Peter Lampl) an PD Dr. Johannes Koll vom 30. Juli und 22. August 2021.