Hans Heller and his family were owners of the renowned Gustav and Wilhelm Candy factory in Vienna established in 1891. Heller was a writer, a businessman and a painter. He wrote one of the first anti-Nazi novels, “Ein Mann Sucht Seine Heimat” Verlag, Switzerland, 1936, which was banned during the Nazi occupation of Austria. He fled the Nazis in 1938 after the Anschluss and made his way first to England and then to America, where he married Helen Ek, and established the Heller Candy Company in Paterson, New Jersey. Hans Heller’s papers are archived at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.
Hans (John) Heller (1896–1987) (on right), painted plaster sculpture in the collection of Marc Heller.
