Museum Blindenwerkstatt Otto Weidt –biographie

Emil Billitz was born in Vienna in 1888. After graduating from school, he began studying mechanical engineering. His studies were interrupted by the First World War, in which he was a second lieutenant in the Austrian army.
In 1938 he had to give up his profession as a self-employed traveling engineer. From the beginning of 1942, he had to perform forced labor transporting heavy crates.
He married the non-Jewish Erna Hennig in July 1934; the marriage protected him from deportation. During “Operation Factory” in the spring of 1943, he was imprisoned for several days, at first in an SS barracks in Berlin-Lichterfelde and later in the assembly camp on Rosenstraße. After his release he was deployed as a laborer for the Reichsbahn rail company. He sustained a severe injury during his work there in June 1943, making him hard of hearing as a result.
From November 3, 1944 until shortly before the end of the war, Emil Billitz worked part-time in the workshop for the blind as a brush-maker. He died in Berlin on January 8, 1947.