Author. He received recognition as a 20th Century Austrian journalist and cabaret writer, who criticized the Nazis regime even while an inmate in the concentration camps at Dachau and Buchenwald. The son of Vladimir Soyfer, a wealthy Jewish Industrialist and his wife Lyubova, he was born in the Ukraine, but his family fled the Bolshevist Revolution in 1921 to Austria. At the age of sixteen, he began studying socialist writings and became a Marxist. In 1929 he became a member of the Political Cabaret of the Social Democrats, where he honed his playwriting skills. He regularly wrote political satires and mocked noted authoritarian figures of the Austrofascist regime like Engelbert Dollfuss, Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, and Kurt Schuschnigg. On February 17, 1938, he was arrested for his political satire. An amnesty program freed him, but he was arrested again just twenty-six days later as he attempted to enter Switzerland. After arriving at Dachau Concentration Camp, he met noted composer, Herbert Zipper, and they co-wrote the famous "Dachaulied," the song that mocks the Nazi motto, "Arbeit macht frei" or translated to "work liberates." He was then transferred to the over-crowded Buchenwald Concentration Camp where he died from typhus the day after his release was approved. His remains were transferred to the United States and are buried at the Hebrew Free Burial Association's Mount Richmond Cemetery. Three books have been published about Jura Soyfer, one of which includes his collective works, which was published in 1974.
Author. He received recognition as a 20th Century Austrian journalist and cabaret writer, who criticized the Nazis regime even while an inmate in the concentration camps at Dachau and Buchenwald. The son of Vladimir Soyfer, a wealthy Jewish Industrialist and his wife Lyubova, he was born in the Ukraine, but his family fled the Bolshevist Revolution in 1921 to Austria. At the age of sixteen, he began studying socialist writings and became a Marxist. In 1929 he became a member of the Political Cabaret of the Social Democrats, where he honed his playwriting skills. He regularly wrote political satires and mocked noted authoritarian figures of the Austrofascist regime like Engelbert Dollfuss, Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, and Kurt Schuschnigg. On February 17, 1938, he was arrested for his political satire. An amnesty program freed him, but he was arrested again just twenty-six days later as he attempted to enter Switzerland. After arriving at Dachau Concentration Camp, he met noted composer, Herbert Zipper, and they co-wrote the famous "Dachaulied," the song that mocks the Nazi motto, "Arbeit macht frei" or translated to "work liberates." He was then transferred to the over-crowded Buchenwald Concentration Camp where he died from typhus the day after his release was approved. His remains were transferred to the United States and are buried at the Hebrew Free Burial Association's Mount Richmond Cemetery. Three books have been published about Jura Soyfer, one of which includes his collective works, which was published in 1974.
Bio by: Bernadette
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