Hirsch Isaac Kauftheil moved with his parents in 1899 from Neu Sandez, Galicia, to Vienna. He became an independent jeweller in 1919 and married Olga Esriel in 1922. Two years later with Sigmund Müller he registered the offene Handelsgesellschaft Kauftheil & Müller, Bijouteriewaren aus Gold und Silber at Siebensterngasse 16 in the 7th district and from 1933 was its sole proprietor. The previous year he had changed is first name to Hermann. After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, he was persecuted as a Jew. In autumn 1938, his company was put under the temporary administration of the watchmaker Rudolf Maier, and a few months later it was liquidated by the Prokurist Andreas Käs from the Abwicklungsstelle für die Liquidierung und Arisierung des Uhren- und Juwelenfaches (Office for the Liquidation and Aryanization of the Watch and Jewellery Sector) and deleted from the register of companies in October 1941. The inventory was transferred to the professional group responsible. Already in 1938 Kauftheil had met Ferdinand Spany, temporary administrator Maier's deputy. When his landlord gave him notice in 1939, Kauftheil appealed to Spany, who took advantage of the desperate situation to pay his own debts to his cousin Alexander Sauer. Kauftheil had to pay Sauer 500 Reichsmarks for the illegal acquisition of a new apartment through Spany, some of the amount being used by Sauer to bribe an official at the Housing Department. Kauftheil and his family moved into the apartment at Heinzelmanngasse 13 in the 20th district in November 1939. A few weeks later he was arrested with Spany and charged with incitement to abuse of office. On 4 June 1940, Kauftheil was registered with the Gestapo and sentenced to three months' imprisonment, compared with six months for Spany. In August 1940 he was still registered at Porzellangasse 39 in the 9th district. Although planning to escape since 1938, he was no longer able to do so. On 15 February 1941 he, his wife Olga and their son Kurt were deported to Opole ghetto where he and his wife are thought to have died. Their son returned to Vienna after the Second World War but died there on 29 October 1945 of tuberculosis. According to Sammelstelle A in 1961, no claims for restitution of the property of Olga and Hermann Kauftheil were made after 1945. It would appear that no investigations have been carried out to date regarding the inventory transferred to the professional group.