Arthur and Irma Czeczowiczka

Arthur Czeczowiczka was born in Prerau, Moravia, Czechoslovakia on August 8, 1875, the eldest of five children of Salomon Sami Czeczowiczka and Jeanette Jenni Yeni Regine Czeczowiczka. He married Irma Adler on March 21, 1916 in Vienna, Austria.  Together they had two children, Hanna (b. January 23, 1917) and Erika (b. August 20, 1918).  The family lived in an apartment in Vienna III., Schwarzenbergerplatz 7 / 1.  Arthur managed the family’s large estate including a castle, real property, and a liquor factory in Partschendorf, Moravia.

While Arthur’s art collection was less important than his younger brother Edwin’s, the collection was still impressive.  Irma, however, was the passionate art collector in the family as she was the one who applied to the Zentralstelle fuer Denkmalschutz for permission to export the artworks in June 1938.  The application included 5 drawings and pastels, 25 oil-paintings, 17 graphics, 6 watercolors, 2 miniatures, several bronzes and porcelains, 14 carpets and two silk carpets. Two of those artworks, a painting by Waldmueller (“Portrait of a Lord” 1826) and a watercolor by Pettenkofen ("Gipsy Camp”) were blocked for export.

The family’s large estate in Partschendorf was confiscated in 1939 by the Gestapo and incorporated into the Lebensborn program in Munich. The whereabouts of the library and the paintings, including a life-sized portrait of his father, Salomon Czeczowiczka by Josef Franz Riedel, and a portrait of his mother, Jenni by Clemens von Pausinger, is still unknown. When the family emigrated from Austria in 1939, they planned to send their belongings and remaining artwork ahead to England via Prague using the transport company, Reitter, however the family’s belongings were confiscated by the Gestapo during their stop in Prague.

Irma died in London in 1954, and Arthur died there three years later in 1957.