Norbert Troller (1896–1984) was a Czech and American

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

descent. He was also an artist notable for his portrayal on life in the

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

Biography

Norbert Troller was born in

Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

(now the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

) in 1896. He served as a

soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a Conscription, conscripted or volunteer Enlisted rank, enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, a warrant officer, or an Officer (armed forces), officer. Etymology The wo ...

in World War I, and was taken

prisoner A prisoner, also known as an inmate or detainee, is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement or captivity in a prison or physical restraint. The term usually applies to one serving a Sentence (law), se ...

by the Italians but released within a year. After the war, he studied architecture at the Brno Technical University, and as a postgraduate student, in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He then worked in various architectural firms in Brno,

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

, as a

draftsman A drafter (also draughtsman / draughtswoman in British and Commonwealth English, draftsman / draftswoman, drafting technician, or CAD technician in American and Canadian English) is an engineering technician who makes detailed technical drawi ...

and an

till he had established his own practice. His projects at that time included single family residences, multifamily residential buildings, industrial buildings, banks, warehouses, department stores, shops and the interiors. His architectural practice ended abruptly with the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1938. As a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

, in 1942 he was imprisoned by the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

in the

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

ghetto A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

. The self-government of the

(the Council of Elders of Theresienstadt) hired him as an architect. During this time he produced a series of graphic drawings, showing the horrible conditions of the Jews in the camp, to be smuggled to the outside world. When the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

found it, he was arrested and jailed in 1944. Later that year he was sent to another concentration camp,

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

. The

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

liberated him in 1945. After the war he lived briefly in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

, Poland, making a living as a painter, before settling in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, and, finally, in his native Brno, where he was able to resume his architectural practice. His first success was to get a commission to build a major department store with offices (the VICHR building) in Brno. Other commissions followed. Yet, being aware of the imminent communist coup, he applied for an American visa in 1945, and

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

to the US as soon as the coup happened in 1948. For the next 10 years, Norbert Troller designed Jewish Community Centers for the US, Canada and Colombia, in the Building Bureau of the

National Jewish Welfare Board The National Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) was formed on April 9, 1917, three days after the United States declared war on Germany, in order to support Jewish soldiers in the U.S. military during World War I. The impetus for creating the organization ...

in New York. He produced about 80 designs of those projects. The local architects had realized many of them. Simultaneously, he had developed and implemented planning and construction design standards for the Jewish Community Centers’ buildings. In 1958 he opened his own practice, and was involved in the design of residential houses, interiors of offices, showrooms, retail shops and restaurants in New York City and the

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...

. Many times during his life, Norbert Troller successfully participated in architectural competitions: in Brno, where he held two personal exhibitions in the Art Center, and in America, where he won the First prize and four Third prizes in the ''Chicago Herald Tribune'' ''Better Rooms Competitions'', 1949 –1950. In 1981 he had an exhibition of his artwork at the Yeshiva University of New York: 300 Theresienstadt drawings. He also taught in the Peoples University in Brno and in a high school in New York City. He died in 1984. In his memoirs he presented a detailed account of the Nazi]atrocities in the Jewish concentration camps. Seven years after his death one of his memoirs was published in the US.Norbert Troller. Theresienstadt: Hitler's Gift to the Jews. The University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Surviving nephews and nieces included

Georg Stefan Troller Georg Stefan Troller (born December 10, 1921) is an Austrian-born French director and screenwriter. In 1938, Troller fled Austria from the Nazis, first to Czechoslovakia and from there on to France, where he was interned as an enemy alien. In 1 ...

, who settled in Paris, Francis Herbert Trent (born Francis Herbert Troller), who settled in London, an
Doris Rauch, née Perlhefter
(who settled in Washington D. C.).

Selected projects

;from 1922 * Single-family residences' interiors.

, Czechoslovakia, 1922 – 1939, 1948–1949 * Interior furnishing: lamps, torchers, chandeliers, furniture, and tableware. Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1922–1939 * E. Witman house. Brno, Czechoslovakia * Dr. Kollman house. Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1947–1949 * Dr. J. Lorek Hunting Lodge.

Čeladná Čeladná is a municipality and village in the Frýdek-Místek District in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,900 inhabitants. Geography Čeladná is located about south of Frýdek-Místek and south of Ostrava. It ...

Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...

, 1940 * Restaurant.

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

, 1940–1941 * Department store. Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1947–1949 * Dr. Miskevics house. Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1947–1949 * Apartments' interiors.

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, 1950 * Single-family residences in

Danbury Danbury ( ) is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately northeast of New York City. Danbury's population as of 2020 was 86,518. It is the third-largest city in Western Connecticut, and the seventh-largest ...

and

Bridgeport Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut and the fifth-most populous city in New England, with a population of 148,654 in 2020. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Is ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

, 1953 * Nursery with school,

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, New York, 1954 * Vacation house on the Lake Oscawana, New York, 1961 * Jewish Community Centers: ;1948 * Bayonne, New Jersey * Bogotá, Colombia * Elmira (town), New York, Elmira, New York * Englewood, New Jersey * Hamilton, Ontario, Canada * Nashville, Tennessee * New Haven, Connecticut * Sioux City, Iowa ;1949 * Duluth, Minnesota * Jacksonville, Florida * Memphis, Tennessee * St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada * Saginaw, Michigan * Syracuse, New York * Toronto, Ontario, Canada #1 * Washington, D.C. * Youngstown, Ohio ;1950 * Akron, Ohio * Birmingham, Alabama #1 * Bronx, New York * Charleston, South Carolina * Evansville, Indiana * Hazleton, Pennsylvania * Houston, Texas * Milwaukee, Wisconsin * Scranton, Pennsylvania * Seattle, Washington * Toledo, Ohio ;1951 * Brookline, Massachusetts, Brookline/Boston, Massachusetts * Los Angeles, California * Manchester, New Hampshire * Savannah, Georgia * Springfield, Massachusetts * York, Pennsylvania * Youth Camps ;1952 * Atlanta, Georgia * Camden, New Jersey * Louisville, Kentucky * Oakland, California #1 * Philadelphia, Pennsylvania * Plainfield, New Jersey * Youth Camps ;1953 * Bronx, New York * Coatesville, Pennsylvania * Indianapolis, Indiana * Ottawa, Ontario, Canada * Passaic, New Jersey * Washington Heights, Manhattan, Washington Heights, New York ;1954 * Allentown, Pennsylvania * Baltimore, Maryland * Corpus Christi, Texas * Pelham Parkway (neighborhood), Bronx, Pelham Parkway, New York * Staten Island, New York * Tucson, Arizona ;1955 * Boston, Massachusetts * Durham, North Carolina * Harrisburg, Pennsylvania * Kingsbridge Heights, Bronx, New York * Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania * Richmond, Virginia * St. Louis, Missouri * San Antonio, Texas #1 * Windsor, Ontario, Canada ;1956 * Birmingham, Alabama #2 * Cleveland, Ohio * Detroit, Michigan * Kansas City, Missouri * Long Beach, California #1 * New Brunswick, New Jersey * Oakland, California #2 * San Antonio, Texas #2 * San Diego, California * Toronto, Ontario, Canada #2 ;1957 * Dallas, Texas * Newburgh (city), New York, Newburgh, New York * Salt Lake City, Utah * Toronto, Ontario, Canada #3 ;1958 * Long Beach, California #2 * Toronto, Ontario, Canada #3

References

Publications

* Norbert Troller. Theresienstadt: Hitler's Gift to the Jews. The University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

Literature

* Magazine ''Interior Design''. May, 1953, pp. 74 – 79 * Newspaper ''Chicago Sunday Tribune'', May 1, 1949, Part 1, page 6

External links

Leo Baeck Institute Archives, R. Joseph collection

Guide to the Norbert Troller collection

Theresienstadt
* Norbert Troller. ''Theresienstadt: Hitler's Gift to the Jews.'' The University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Troller, Norbert 1896 births 1984 deaths Architects from Brno People from the Margraviate of Moravia Czech Jews Jewish architects Theresienstadt Ghetto survivors Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States Synagogue architecture 20th-century Czech architects Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alumni Auschwitz concentration camp survivors