Afritschgasse (Kagran, settlement “Am Freihof”), named in 1927 after the journalist and politician

Anton Afritsch, born December 8, 1873 Klagenfurt, † July 7, 1924 Graz, social politician, father of Josef Afritsch. 

Anton Afritsch was born in Klagenfurt to a factory worker; he did not know his father, who died early. He grew up in great poverty, became a carpenter’s assistant, moved to Graz, where he made contact with the Social Democrats and became the editor of the Styrian party newspaper “Arbeiterwille”, where he worked for two decades. After more and more children from the street joined the games and excursions that he undertook with his own children, Afritsch recognized the lack of care and support from which the children of most workers suffered and founded on February 26, 1908 in Graz the children’s organization “Kinderfreunde”, which quickly expanded across Austria. From 1917 he was chairman of the Reich Association of “Kinderfreunde” in Vienna. Afritsch was a housing and welfare officer in Graz and wrote the book “Ins neue Leben” in 1920.