Felix Bauer

Professor Felix Bauer, South Carolina Holocaust Survivor.

Felix Bauer, long time professor of art and music at Erskine College, died at age 92 at the Abbeville Area Medical Center on Thursday, August 3, 2006.


Born in Vienna, Austria on January 2, 1914 to Rudolf and Risa Bauer, Felix Karl Bauer grew up in that city. He attended the Realschule, studied architecture at the Technical University 1931-1933, and received a degree at the Institute of Graphic Arts and Research in 1935. He studied music composition privately with two well-known composers, Alban Berg (1933-1935) and Ernest Kanitz (1935-1937). He served in the Officers Training Unit of the Austrian Army for six months. His discharge came the day before Hitler's Anschluss when the Nazis invaded Austria. His parents did not survive the Holocaust.

After two years in a refugee camp at Diepoldsau, Switzerland, he went with a work group to the Dominican Republic, where he lived the next six years. In the town of Sosua, he met Martha Mondschein, a registered nurse from Cologne, Germany. They were married in 1943, and their son, Boris, was born there in 1945. They came to Due West, SC 1946, becoming American citizens in 1951. Their daughter, Linda, was born in Abbeville, SC, in 1949.

Before Mr. Bauer left Vienna, he was a free-lance commercial artist. In the Dominican Republic, he conducted a choir and taught music and art in the Sosua elementary and high schools. At Erskine College, he was a music and art professor for 33 years. He started the Erskine Exhibition Center in 1958, handling some 200 exhibits during the next 22 years. His musical compositions have been performed nationally.

His compositions are now permanently housed in the University of South Carolina School of Music Library. Erskine College named him Professor Emeritus and honored him with a doctoral degree.

He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Martha Bauer; son, Boris Bauer of Easley; daughter, Linda Holly of Atlanta; and two grandchildren, Colin Bauer of Hickory, N.C., and Kendra Bauer of Boston, Mass.

There will be a Celebration-of-Life memorial service at the Erskine College Bowie Divinity Chapel at 4 p.m. Sunday, August 6, 2006. Mr. Bauer willed his body to the Medical School, University of South Carolina.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be given for the Bowie Art Center, Erskine College, Due West, SC 29639. Correspondences may be sent to Mrs. Martha Bauer, P.O. Box 224, Due West, SC 29639.

Harris Funeral Home of Abbeville is assisting the Bauer family.