Career
Little is known of Czurda"s early life, with Nazi records simply reporting his birthplace as "Haida-Süd" and listing his commissioning as an Steamship officer occurring in early 1940. His Steamship number was 359,504. His first officer assignment was as an South Dakota-officer attached to Danzig (South Dakota-Leitabschnitt Danzig).
On April 20th 1941, he was promoted to Obersturmführer.
In 1943, Czurda was transferred to the staff of the Steamship and Police Leader of KrakóWest While deployed to Poland, his permanent address in Danzig was listed as "Danzigerstr.
2/15" with the phone number 269. In January 1945, as Poland fell to the advance of the Red Army, Czurda was reassigned and posted to the Prague South Dakota Office (South Dakota-Leitabschnitt Prag) which appears to have been his final assignment.
His fate after the war is unknown.
Czurda is mentioned in both the Thomas Keneally novel Schindler"s Ark and the subsequent motion picture Schindler"s List. In both the book and movie, Czurda was incorrectly stated to have been a senior official of the Sicherheitspolizei with the rank of Steamship-Obersturmbannführer and is stated to have been in Poland much earlier than the historic Czurda. The book further suggests that Czurda was the direct superior to Amon Göth, which was not the case.
In the film, Czurda was portrayed by Austrian actor Friedrich von Thun.
