Edwin and Caroline Czeczowiczka

Ing. Edwin Czeczowiczka was born on October 21, 1877 in Přerov (Prerau), Moravia.  After completing his studies at the Technische Hochschule Wien, he founded the firm Textilfabrik Brüder Czeczowiczka in Andrychow, Poland and became a powerful textile industrialist.  With the assistance of the Viennese art dealer Gustav Nebehay, he began collecting German Romantic drawings in his early 20s and later expanded his collection to include Old Master drawings.  On July 14, 1919 he married Caroline “Cara” Reitlinger (b. March 14, 1896 in Vienna), and the couple resided in Vienna at Uraniastrasse 2 in Vienna.

In 1938, Edwin decided to emigrate to Poland where the headquarters of his textile firm was located, and the family packed works from their extensive art collection into lifts for exportation.  Twenty-two works of art were seized on October 29, 1938 by the Vienna and brought to the Central Office for Monument Protection, and the lifts were confiscated by the VUGESTA (Gestapo Office for the Disposal of the Property of Jewish Emigrants).  Much of the lifts’ contents were sold at the Dorotheum auction house in the early 1940s.  Edwin Czeczowiczka made it to Poland and subsequently joined his wife and children in England, where they had fled earlier.  He died in London on May 9, 1971, and Carolina died on November 8, 1979.