Johann Bren

Johann Bren worked in Vienna as a turner and design engineer. In 1913 he married the qualified dressmaker Anna Stollewerk, but was forced at the outbreak of the First World War to leave his wife behind him in his home city. Johann Bren was taken prisoner by the Russians as early as 1914 and held captive in various POW camps in Siberia until his homecoming in 1920. In the years of his absence Johann Bren kept a notebook he used especially for listing the forces postcards, packages and money despatches he received from home – tables that last but not least testify to the regular correspondence between him and his wife Anna.