Building named after Samuel Steinherz with memorial plaque

The building with student apartments was planned by the GBI Holding AG. In the tradition of the parent organization, the Moses Mendelssohn Stiftung, each building in the "SMARTments series" (houses with student apartments) is named after an outstanding Jewish personality who was connected with the respective city. The building in Graz received the name "Samuel Steinherz House," as the Austrian-Czechoslovak historian and university professor grew up in Graz and Vienna. Samuel Steinherz (1857–1942) researched Jewish history and was particularly committed to the integration of Jews into European societies. When Nazi Germany placed the entire present-day Czech Republic under its administration in 1939, Samuel Steinherz, like many other Jewish women and men, was excluded from cultural and scientific life. Together with his wife and his daughters, Samuel Steinmetz was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in July 1942, where he died on his 85th birthday.