Johann Gruber (October 20, 1889 – April 7, 1944), also known as "Papa Gruber" and "The Saint of Gusen", was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest who was imprisoned in Concentration Camp Gusen I from 1940 until he was murdered by the camp commandant on Holy Friday 1944. In the concentration camp, Gruber helped many others survive by raising funds from outside the camp and bribing the SS men and kapos in order to organise the delivery of food to starving inmates.KZ Mauthausen-GUSEN Dr. Johann (Papa) Gruber (The Saint of Gusen)
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Education

Johann Gruber was born in Tegernbach near

Grieskirchen Grieskirchen is a town in Austria. It is capital of the Grieskirchen district of Upper Austria, in the Trattnachtal valley. Notable people * Franz Födermayr (1933–2020), musicologist, was born in the town. * Otto Prechtler (1813–1881), dra ...

, Austria. When his parents died, he became a pupil at the

Petrinum Linz The Bischöfliches Gymnasium Petrinum () is a Catholic private school of the Diocese of Linz situated on the slopes of Poestlingberg hill in Urfahr, which is a part of Linz. History On 2 July 1896 the building works began. The imposing struc ...

, a catholic private school where he received his

Matura or its translated terms (''Mature'', ''Matur'', , , , , , ) is a Latin name for the secondary school exit exam or "maturity diploma" in various European countries, including Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cz ...

. In 1910, he joined the seminary in Linz. Following his ordination he served for several years as a priest until he began to study philosophy in Vienna. He finished his studies with a PhD in 1923 and became a teacher and director of an institution for the Blind in Linz.

Captivity

In 1938, after the Annexation of Austria into the German Reich, Gruber was arrested for expressing his opposition against the new national socialist regime. While he was imprisoned, the Nazi press started a smear campaign against him, claiming that he sexually abused his pupils. Witnesses were put under pressure to confirm the allegations and Gruber was convicted to spend two years in prison. When Gruber was released from prison, he was sent to

Dachau concentration camp Dachau () was the first concentration camp built by Nazi Germany, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents which consisted of: communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It is ...

and then to

Gusen concentration camp Gusen was a subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp operated by the SS () between the villages of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and Langestein in the Reichsgau Ostmark (currently Perg District, Upper Austria). Primarily populated by Polish pr ...

. In Gusen he participated in an archaeological project outside the camp and succeeded in contacting his friends who sent him money. This enabled Gruber to forward messages and to support his fellow prisoners with food and medication. His activities were discovered by the camp commander on April 4, 1944. Gruber was interrogated and tortured for three days. The guards hanged his corpse on a tree nearby and the cause of his death was officially declared suicide.Leidinger, Hannes (2012), Die Bedeutung Der Selbstauslöschung, Studien Verlag. p.256 In 2016 the criminal court in Vienna reversed Grubers conviction concerning sexual abuse.

Education

Captivity

Notes and references

Further reading