Memorial Portrait Alois Berger (1882 - 1940)

🕯️In Memory of Alois Berger (1882–1940)

Born: January 9, 1882, in Hall in Tirol
Residence: Mustergasse 7, Hall in Tirol
Profession: Shoemaker
Arrested and Deported:

• June 15, 1938 – August 23, 1938: Dachau Concentration Camp (Prisoner Number 16117)
• February 18, 1940 – July 7, 1940: Deported again to Dachau Concentration Camp

Died: July 7, 1940, in Dachau Concentration Camp from the consequences of his imprisonment. The reasons for his arrests remain unknown.
We remember his life and suffering as a solemn reminder of the horrors of persecution.
 
We remember Alois Berger, a citizen of our community, whose life was extinguished by National Socialist tyranny.
Alois Berger was more than just a prisoner number. He was a human being with a home, a trade, and a place in life. Born and raised in Hall in Tirol, he was a skilled shoemaker, likely known to all around him. His home at Mustergasse 7 was the center of his life.
Yet this life was taken from him. The reasons for his arrests remain unknown—a terrible testament to the arbitrariness of a regime that needed no justification to destroy a human being. His prisoner number, 16117, in the Dachau concentration camp, became a symbol of his disenfranchisement.
The torments Alois Berger was forced to endure were so cruel that they broke his body. His death on July 7, 1940, from "heart failure" was not a natural consequence of age but the direct result of hunger, forced labor, deprivation, and systematic maltreatment in the camp.
We keep the memory of Alois Berger alive so that he is not forgotten. His fate reminds us to be vigilant and to resolutely oppose all forms of injustice, exclusion, and political persecution.
His memory obliges us to uphold humanity.