World
The silent Indian hero who created fake companies to save Jews from the Holocaust
Businessman Kundan Lal Gupta, from Punjab, never revealed his elaborate ploy to secure work visas for desperate Austrian Jews
July 14, 2025 15:13
Businessman Kundan Lal Gupta, from Punjab, never revealed his elaborate ploy to secure work visas for desperate Austrian Jews
July 14, 2025 15:13In 1938, Germany had annexed Austria and antisemitism across central Europe was rising. The Nazis were preparing to execute one of the biggest genocides in history.
It was this year when a man from 3,500 miles away, who was completely uninvolved with Europe, happened to bump into a young couple in an Austrian hospital. This chance encounter led to the lives of 14 Jews being saved.
Kundan Lal Gupta, then 46, from Punjab, India, was suffering from diabetes and haemorrhoids and heard about a specialist in Austria. He travelled to the country to be treated and there, in hospital, he met a young Jewish couple named Lucy and Alfred Wachsler.
The couple told him about the rising levels of antisemitism in the region while in Germany and how difficult life was becoming for Jews under Nazi rule. Gupta, unable to turn his back on the innocent Austrian Jews, had a plan to get them out before it was too late.
At that stage, Jewish people were allowed to leave the country with their families providing they had a work visa for a job in another country.
Being a successful businessman back in India, Gupta came up with a plan. He would set up companies with the specific purpose of providing work to the Austrian Jews. This meant that not only could he get them the visa they so desperately needed but would also give them a livelihood when they arrived.
If he could not create a suitable company for them, he decided to simply make one up. He would offer jobs that did not even exist, in businesses that were made up. He made sure to fill out all the paperwork so that officials would not find out it was purely a ploy to get them out the country.
Over the course of a few months, he placed newspaper adverts looking for skilled workers willing to relocate to India. Several respondents came in and Gupta offered each of them a job, real or not.
Vinay Gupta, who last year published a book on his grandfather’s efforts called A Rescue In Vienna, said: "A striking aspect of all of Kundanlal's elaborate scheming on behalf of these families was how close-mouthed he remained, keeping up appearances of technology transfer to India until the very end.
"He did not share his intent or plans with any Indian or British officials. His family learned of his plans only when he returned home months later."
One of those Gupta saved was Fritz Weiss, a 30-year-old Jewish lawyer who was being forced to clean the streets outside his own home and who had taken to hiding in a hospital faking an illness.
Gupta offered him job at a company he had set up called "Kundan Agencies." This company did not exist.
Another was Alfred Wachsler, a master woodworker whose wife was pregnant.
A third was Hans Losch, a textile technician who replied to one of the newspaper adverts. He was offered a job at “Kundan Cloth Mills” — another fake company.
There was also Alfred Schafranek, who had once owned a 50-employee plywood factory and Siegmund Retter, a machine tools businessman.
Gupta got all of these people visas and safe passage to India where they could start over, free from Nazi rule.
Almost never talking about his heroic past, Gupta died at the died from a heart attack in 1966 at the age of 73.
Decades later, Vinay found out about what his grandfather had done when his mother revealed it, prompting the book to be written.
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