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AHC interview with Ruth Switzer.
No full textSeptember 10, 2015Ruth Switzer, née Schattner was born 1934 in Vienna, Austria at Gruene Torgasse 10, in the 9th District. Her parents, Dr. Erwin Schattner (born 1915) and Tina née Weil (born 1905) were of Polish descent. After having worked for a Zionist organization, Erwin Schattner attended medical school and then opened his private practice in Vienna; Tina Schattner had studied liberal arts - Latin and ancient Greek – and was a housewife. Upon Erwin Schattner’s father advice, the Switzer family wrote letters to Erwin’s brothers in London and the US. Ruth’s sister Hannah was born 1938, just months before the family’s emigration to London on October 25, 1938.Erwin Schattner was declared an "Enemy Alien" by the British government, but that status was revoked after talks at a local police station. In June 1940 the family got under the Polish quota to immigrate to the United States and took the ship "Samaria" to New York. First, the family lived at Ruths' uncles' apartment in Manhattan, but when her father started working at a mental hospital, they moved to a house nearby. Ruth went to elementary and high school in Brooklyn and acquired her degree in teaching at the Brooklyn College. She taught English as a second language until her retirement.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Herbert Stilman.
No full textSeptember 8, 2015Herbert Stilman was born in 1926 Vienna, Austria, where he lived with his parents and his younger sister Silvia. His father George Stilman worked as a businessman in the textile industry. The Stilmans left Austria on September 2, 1938 and stayed three years in Stockholm, waiting for their US visas. The family had several relatives in various parts of the US, who provided all necessary affidavits for the visas. While in Stockholm the family got financial support from the Jewish benefactor Marcus Kaplan. In 1941 the family immigrated to the United States: in Stockholm they took a ferry to Helsinki, then went by train to Leningrad and on to Moscow, eventually taking the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Wladiwostok, where they took a ship to Kobe, Japan and finally on the ocean liner Hikawa Maru to Seattle, where they arrived on April 28, 1941. HIAS helped them to move on to New York City.Herbert Stilman attended Abraham Lincoln high school in Brooklyn and got drafted at the age of 18. After serving his duty at the military he worked in his father’s textile store and eventually opened his own store in Manhattan.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Hedy Dichter
No full textFebruary 18, 2015Hedy Dichter was born on 8/6/1911 in Vienna, Austria. Her father was a travelling salesman and later established a brass furniture business. He could afford sending Hedy to the prestigious Lyzeum in Vienna where she learned to play the piano. Due to her father's financial struggles, she had to quit school and commenced working as a piano teacher. Nonetheless, she graduated by attending evening classes. She married Ernest Dichter, and with the help of a relative in the US, the couple obtained affidavits, which however turned out to be worthless. But an interview at the American embassy in Vienna luckily paved the Dichters way to the US, because the Ambassador was personally convinced that Ernest Dichter's business idea would be successful in the US. Before the outbreak of the war, Hedy and her husband embarked on a ship in Le Havre, France and headed to New York City. Ernest Dichter got a job with an advertisement agency and went on to establish his own firm, incorporating Freud's psychology into the advertising business. Hedy Dichter taught the piano and also worked as a bookkeeper in her husband’s corporation. She paid Austria several visits throughout the years, but never considered re-migrating. In 2010 Hedy Dichter met the Austrian President, Heinz Fischer. She retired to a senior living residence in Croton-on- Hudson.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Henry Heinz Brecher.
No full textFebruary 2, 2015Henry Heinz Brecher was born Heinz Brecher on August 29, 1932, in Graz. After the Anschluss, his parents sent him to live with relatives in Zagreb, where he stayed for three years. After these relatives emigrated, he subsequently stayed with several other families before arrangements were made to have him taken to Split, which was in the Italian-occupied part of Yugoslavia. Heinz lived in Split until the Italian capitulation and subsequent German occupation of this part of Yugoslavia. After a brief detention in Split in spring 1944, they made their way a displaced persons camp in Bari, Italy. They immigrated to the United States in August 1944.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Manfred Weidhorn.
No full textApril 7, 2015Manfred Weidhorn was born 10/10/1931 in Vienna, Austria the first son of Aron Weidhorn, who was in the fur business, and Anna, née Gelber. The family lived in Vienna´s second district; both parents hailed from Rawa-Ruska, Galicia and had come to Vienna with the outbreak of World War I. Manfred attended primary school for approximately one year in Vienna, until moving to Haifa, Palestine in March 1936. The family returned one year later. Manfred and his mother Anna went on to live with their maternal grandparents, whereas Aron Weidhorn opened a fur business in Paris, France. On March 18, 1938, Manfred, his mother, and his maternal grandparents fled to Italy, moving on to Paris and then to Antwerp, Belgium in August of 1939. Aron Weidhorn escaped to America in December of 1939, where he continued to work in the fur business. The remainder of the Weidhorn family escaped Antwerp on the day of the German invasion (May 10, 1940), but whereas Manfred and his mother went to Paris, his maternal grandparents returned to Antwerp. They would eventually be deported and perished in Auschwitz. In July of 1941, Manfred Weidhorn and his mother travelled to Bilbao, Spain, where they embarked on the “Magallanes”, travelling to Havana, Cuba, where they stayed until receiving US visas in October. The family reunited in New York and settled in Borough Park, Brooklyn.Manfred attended Borough Park Yeshiva Elementary School, later moving on to Stuyvesant High School. He was awarded the New York State Regents Scholarship and attended Columbia College, graduating in 1954. He was drafted into the army and assigned to the Field Artillery Battalion in Ulm, Germany. After being discharged in 1956, Manfred Weidhorn continued his studies, earning his PhD in English at Columbia University in April 1963, and was shortly after hired as an Assistant Professor of English at Yeshiva University. He worked as a professor at that very institution for 51 years, was involved in the faculty´s attempt to unionize, became a renowned scholar of English, and published several books. He retired eventually to Fairlawn, NJ.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Siegfried Mayer.
No full textJune 5, 2015Siegfried Mayer was born 8/24/1927 in Vienna, Austria. His parents, Henry and Goldie Mayer, née Sigall, hailed from Galicia and never obtained Austrian citizenship. They also had a daughter, Sedonia. Henry Mayer was an actor and owned the “Theater Reclame” on Praterstrasse in Vienna’s 2nd district, while the family lived in the 20th district, Brigittenau. In 1930, his father toured New York City, where he had friends and relatives.In April 1938, Jews were not allowed in public high schools anymore, and Siegfried got beaten up several times. His father registered the family at the American Consulate in Vienna in order to obtain visas for the United States, which they acquired in early 1939; affidavits were provided by relatives of Henry Mayer, who lived in the Bronx. The Mayer family left Austria by train for Rotterdam, where they boarded the “New Amsterdam” and disembarked a week later in New York City. After living temporarily in the Bronx in an uncle’s apartment, the Mayer family moved to Rockaway Beach, Queens. Siegfried’s mother Goldie worked as a sewer while his father, unable to pursue his carrier as an actor, had to make a living working in a shipyard. After finishing primary school, Siegfried Mayer attended a high school in the Bronx, where he graduated in 1944. Drafted in 1945, Siegfried Mayer stayed with the army for a year, before enrolling at City College and obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry. The following years, Siegfried Mayer decided to continue his studies in Europe since he was not accepted to American medical schools. He enrolled at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland and later also studied in Geneva and Lausanne. After graduation, Siegfried moved back to the US to work in a City Hospital in the Bronx and eventually opening his own office. He retired to Englewood, New Jersey.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Michaela Vilhotti.
No full textSeptember 18, 2015Michaela Vilhotti was born August 28th, 1937 in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of the lawyer Karl Jellinek (born 1894 in Mistelbach, Lower Austria) and his wife Kreiner née Eckstein (born 1910 in Ukraine). In 1939 the family immigrated via the Netherlands to New York, where Michaela attended Hunter College and got a master’s degree in psychology.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Arnold Schonfeld.
No full textJanuary 28, 2015 (part 1) and February 5, 2015 (part 2)Arnold Schonfeld was born on 4/13/1925 in Vienna, Austria. The Szajnfeld family lived in Brigittenau, Vienna’s 20th district. Later on, they moved to the 2nd district, Leopoldstadt. His father was a clerk and had a political post in an organization supporting Russia's Jews. The Szajnfelds were social democrats. Arnold's father was taken to a concentration camp shortly after the Anschluss but could return after three weeks. Subsequently, he managed to obtain a British visa for himself, but not for his family. After a while, he could get Arnold's brother and mother to England, while Arnold went to school in Paris. After spending a year in Paris, Arnold came to London. He and his brother were taken to Bedfordshire in Northern England because of the war. After returning to London, Arnold Schonfeld graduated from a high school in East London in 1942/43. Although Arnold wanted to join the Allies in fighting the Nazis, he stayed in London instead and studied electrical engineering, which he finished with a Bachelor's degree. At the same time, he and a partner started a clothing business with fabrics produced in England. When his mother died in a plane crash in Israel in 1948, Arnold decided to sell his business and move to Zurich, Switzerland, with his wife and two children, to become, what his mother always wanted him to be: a doctor. His studies in Switzerland were financed by the means, he had accumulated during his business years in England. Subsequently, the Schonfeld family moved to New York, where he worked as a physician in New York City.See also the interview with Arnold Schonfeld’s brother, Fabian Schonfeld, AHC 4191.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Raoul Pleskow.
No full textFebruary 9, 2015Raoul Pleskow was born 10/12/1931 in Vienna, Austria. He was an only child and lived in Wolfsaugasse 20 with his parents until 1936, when the family left for Czechoslovakia for work-related reasons: Raoul's father was a musician. The family was still in Czechoslovakia at the time of the "Anschluss". After managing to obtain affidavits and visas for the United States at the embassy in Prague, they headed to Switzerland by plane and then to Paris and Le Havre, where Raoul and his parents embarked on the "Normandie". It was the last voyage of this iconic ship that would take the Pleskow family to New York. Raoul attended Queens College as well as Columbia University and graduated with a Master of Arts in 1958. He taught music at Long Island University for most of his professional career and worked as a composer.Austrian Heritage Collectio