Viktor Nečas

(born on 17 December 1907 in Vienna, died on 1 April 1991 in Vienna) Prisoner number: 24622

Viktor Nečas was born on 17 December 1907 in Vienna. In 1937, he fought as a volunteer in the International Brigades on the side of the Spanish Republic against Francisco Franco and the putschists. At the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 Nečas was incarcerated in the French camps of Saint-Cyprien, Gurs and Le Vernet. He was then extradited to the German Reich, where from 1940 he was held prisoner in Vienna.

Austrian by birth, Viktor Nečas was used a camp senior, responsible for discipline in the Kaufering III camp. He managed to preserve the camp log book, before the camp was destroyed. Source: KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau

In April of the following year, the detainee was brought to Dachau concentration camp as a “volunteer fighter against Spain” and communist. He was put to work as a block writer, and later as waiter in the SS officers’ mess. This work earned him special privileges, which he retained following his transfer to Landsberg/Kaufering concentration subcamp complex. As one of the non-Jewish concentration camp prisoners in Kaufering III camp, he was deployed by the SS as a Camp Senior.

Viktor Nečas (4th from left) an Austrian volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, was one of the few non-Jewish prisoners in Kaufering. Source: Spanienarchiv im DÖW

When the SS guard wanted to burn the camp book when faced with US American troops that were drawing ever closer, Viktor Nečas saved it from the flames. He carried the book with him during the entire return journey to his home town. He presented it to the Jewish Museum in New York in 1973. In Vienna he worked as a house electrician. He died in his home town on 1 April 1991.