Ignjat Granitz

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Ignjat Granitz (1845–1908) was a Croatian-Jewish industrialist, philanthropist and publisher. He was born in Kemenesmagasi, then part of the Austrian Empire, to a poor Jewish family. He trained as a teacher in Győr in 1864 and briefly studied at a rabbinical school in Bratislava, but left because of his liberal views. He worked as a teacher in Sárvár and later in Nagykanizsa, where he met his future wife, Paula Deutsch. They moved to Zagreb in 1869 and married in 1870. They had four daughters: Olga, Zlata, Štefanija and Janka.

In Zagreb, Granitz joined with Lavoslav Hartman. They started the printing business Hartman & Granitz in 1878. After Hartman’s death, Granitz teamed up with Vilim Schwartz and, in 1882, formed Ignjat Granitz & Comp. The company grew with new printing machines and became a leading Croatian printer of school books in 1883. It also published the Agramer Zeitung.

Granitz was active in business and public life. He helped found the paper factory Zagrebačka tvornica papira in 1895, was a member of the Croatian-Slavonian commercial bank and the Commercial Chamber, and helped found the Industrialists Union of Croatia-Slavonia. He later served as honorary vice president of the union. He was involved in Freemasonry and served as a city representative in Zagreb. He was a close friend of painter and politician Izidor Kršnjavi.

After Granitz’s death, his company merged with Iván Novak’s printing house to form the Graphic and Publishing Bureau Tipografija d.d., which published Jutarnji list, Večer, Obzor and Svijet. In 1959 Tipografija d.d. merged with Narodni list to create the newspaper house Vjesnik.

The Granitz family faced tragedy during World War II. The regime seized their assets, and Olga was killed in the streets of Zagreb, Zlata committed suicide when the Gestapo came for her, Štefanija survived by hiding in the Netherlands, and Janka was arrested and later freed by her son. Many relatives perished in the Holocaust, and after the war, in Yugoslavia, the family’s properties were not returned.