Franz Kosmus
We are looking for relatives of Franz Kosmus, born on October 30, 1917, in Gairach, which belonged to Austria-Hungary at the time. Today the town is called Jurklošter and belongs to Slovenia. At the beginning of the Second World War, it was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In April 1941, the Wehrmacht occupied the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and large parts of Slovenia. Ensuing attempts to subject the population to forced Germanization led to the arrest and expulsion of thousands of Slovenes.
A weaver by profession, Kosmus and his wife Christine (née Hocevar) had one child. He was arrested in January 1945. On March 12, the Security Police in Marburg/Maribor ordered his deportation to the Dachau concentration camp. He was assigned to forced labor in the Überlingen sub-camp. Franz Kosmus survived, and in 1945 he returned home to territory which was by then Yugoslavian once more.
