Max Ferk 1914 - 1945

Born 22.9.1914 in Kronenberg/Kronska Gora
Died 21.4.1945 in Mauthausen

Biography

Max was born in 1914 in the small village of Kronenberg in the northern part of Slovenia (today's Kronska Gora) above the town of Otiski Vrh near Dravograd. His father Joannes Ferk (born 1876) was only 38 years old when he has been sent to the front of the First World War. He died in the same year as Max was born. Joannes inherited and was running a family farm which then had to be run by his widow Antonija. Losing his father in the First World War, losing his brother in the the Second World War, this was the Ferk family majorly.

Max deserted the German army he was forced to join. He has seen tragedies and apparently has been sent to the Russian front. He fled the army and came very close to home, only an hour drive away. However he was captured by the Gestapo in the city of Celje in today's Slovenia on 19 July 1944. On 20 January 1945 he was taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp and from there on 1st March 1945 to its subcamp „Mittelbau-Dora“. From there he was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp on 19 April 1945 where he survived only for two days.

Max was only couple of weeks away from liberation of the camp by the allied forces, however he died just before that.

Max had three sisters living in today's Koroška, namely Marija (married Gregor), Frančiška and Lenka (called also Lena).

His sister Marija, born in 1917, remembered Max in sad memories as she had visited him once in Germany when he was placed somewhere between Munich and Nuremberg by the German army. Marija prayed for Max every time I can recall talking to her.

Max was only 30 years old when he died.

 

Dejan Gregor, his great-nephew

Location In room