I am indeed surprised at this correspondence - it was very well known
that wealthy Viennese Jews and their sons [>from late teens upwards]
were effectively taken hostage quite early in the National Socialist
era on trumped-up charges [ie well before the Kristallnacht] and sent
to Buchenwald and Dachau to be ransomed by their frantic families for
large amounts of money. I think ransom is a more suitable term than
bribing. The prison guards were hardly involved in these "high-profile"
cases.

If they were unfortunate to die there in "an incident", the families
could purchase *their*? ashes to be buried in Vienna. I have written
about this a number of times on the Austria-Czech SIG. Use keywords
"celia ashes" to search the SIG message archives. The victims can
often be identified in the IKG cemetery database if there is a big
discrepancy in the date of death [1938] and burial [of the ashes].

Other early Austrian prisoners included those who were deemed
politically or otherwise undesirable - ie they were not taken for
financial reasons. These may not have had enough money to be ransomed
and their fate was inevitable. Perhaps prison guards were bribable
for small amounts of money in these cases - I have no evidence.

See this picture: Fritz SCHLESINGER came >from a very wealthy and
influential Viennese family indireclty associated to my family - and
read my commentary: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cam37/646487558/

Two other much closer Viennese family members were captured for
ransom - one died trying to escape and one was indeed ransomed by his
very wealthy father. The family {father, mother and two sons} then
settled in the UK.

You may also wish to visit my growing pictorial holocaust site -
"Holocaust Memorials - public and private"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cam37/sets/72157603905805036/

In the next few weeks, many more pictures will be added following
my visit to Slovakia {Galanta, Trnva, Vrbove cemeteries}.

Celia Male, London, U.K.