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AHC interview with Charles Ohlenberg.
No full textDecember 14, 2015Charles Ohlenberg was born as Karl Ohlenberg in Vienna, Austria on 02/17/1922, the son of the physician Benjamin Ohlenberg and the housewife Maria née Perlmut. The family lived in Wipplingerstrasse, Vienna’s First District. Charles attended "Schubertschule" in the 9th District.After the events of the November pogroms, Charles and his brother Paul tried to meet their uncle in France, but were arrested in Strasbourg, because they had no legal papers and were sent back to Vienna. Eventually, Charles Ohlenberg managed to escape with the help of Kindertransport to the UK, where he worked as a waiter (his brother Paul perished in the Holocaust). On 12/3/1952 Charles immigrated to the United States, where he lived in Philadelphia, Florida and Brooklyn, NY, working in several restaurants and in banks. After his retirement, Charles Ohlenberg settled in Connecticut.Austrian Heritage Collectio
Walter Blum.
No full textThe life history of Walter Josef Blum, who was honored with a “Stolperstein” in his hometown of Mannheim, Germany.Also included is correspondence pertaining to the ceremony.digitizedWalter Blum was born May 23, 1921 in Mannheim, Germany, the son of Sigmund Blum (Jewish) and his catholic wife Helene née Kretzler. Together with his friend Ernst Michel, Walter was deported to Auschwitz, where he died on Nov. 19, 1944
Gaby Glückselig – Ein Nachruf /
No full textObituary for Gabriele (Gaby) Glückselig, née Netter, 1914-2015
Hein family history : A chronology with stories, 1838-2011.
No full textChronological history of the extended family of Friedel (Siegfried) Hein and his wife Ilse, née Mayer
AHC interview with Liana F. Kaufmann.
No full textFebruary 26, 2015Liana Kaufmann, née Feith, was born 1921 in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of the textile merchant Hugo Feith, and his wife, née Schachter. She lived with her parents and her younger sister in Wieden, the 4th district of Vienna, Heumuehlgasse 4. Her father had volunteered in World War I and got married after he had returned from the war. The Feith family had a maid and a governess, who thought the sisters French. Liana attended Volksschule (primary school) in Pressgasse and later on went to Luther Maedchenreformgymnasium in the first district: this was a private high school with approximately 200 students. There were approximately five Jewish students in each class.Some months after the Anschluss, Hugo Feith obtained an affidavit from distant relatives in Philadelphia, the Wollmann family. In June 1938, Hugo Feith was imprisoned and scheduled to be deported to Dachau; he was released, after he was put under American protection by the US Ambassador Reinhard, who had been alarmed by the two Feith sisters. The Feith family sold their apartment way below the actual market value and succeeded to leave for France on July 12, 1938. They boarded "Ile de France" heading for New York City. For the first two years, the Feith family lived at their relatives’ place in Philadelphia, where the Wollmann family owned a neck-tie factory and provided jobs for Liana’s parents.After she graduated from high school, the whole family moved to New York City. Hugo Feith tried to establish his own textile business, but failed several times. Liana worked in several clerical positions; at one of her jobs she met her future husband, Murray Lipton, a student at the medical school at the University of Michigan. The couple moved there in 1942, and they had one daughter. In 1943, her husband was drafted and started working at the Manhattan Project for the American army, researching the atomic bomb. After the war, Murray Lipton moved his wife and daughter to Louisville, Kentucky, where he taught at the University. Liana earned a Bachelor's degree in both German and French from the University of Louisville and started teaching. In 1963, she divorced her husband; Murray Lipton later contributed research to the vaccine against polio and died in 1987. Liana earned a Master’s degree at Columbia University and became the Head of the German Department at Finch College in 1966. After the college went bankrupt in 1975, she continued her studies in Munich and Paris. In 1976, she married her second husband, Mike Kaufmann, who died in the late seventies.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Erika Bernich.
No full textMay 7, 2015Erika Bernich, née Handler was born 1934 in Vienna, Austria. The Handler family lived in the 13th district of Vienna, Hietzing. Erika’s grandfather, Koloman Handler, owned a factory that produced loose-leaf ring metals in Atzgersdorf, close to Vienna; he employed about 300 workers. The company was seized by the Nazis, but restored to the Handler family after the war and ultimately sold in 1997. Erika’s father, Karl Handler wanted to become a cellist, but eventually worked for his father’s business. Erika’s mother, Erna Unger, hailed from a German family; her maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States in the 1930s.After the “Anschluss”, Erika’s father moved to England with the help of business connections. Erika, her sister Eva (later Weintraub) and their mother followed in December 1938. The Handler sisters attended a private school in Croydon, England. During the blitzkrieg, they were sent to Wales for two years with their class and teachers. In 1944, the Handlers left England for Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Erika’s parents divorced. Her father founded an art gallery and worked for Christie’s in Buenos Aires; he remarried, and after the war he went back to Austria with Erika’s sister Eva. Erika’s mother Erna married Rudolf Rosenthal in Buenos Aires. Together with Erika, they immigrated to the US in 1947; Erna’s sister, Marga Leschinksy, lived in New York City and provided affidavits. The family moved to the Upper West Side and Erika attended Hunter High School and subsequently City College, where she graduated in 1956; she obtained her PhD in chemistry in 1967. When her father passed away, she opened the factory’s US office and imported loose-leaf ring metals from Vienna.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Robert Foster.
No full textMay 5, 2015Robert Foster's mother Meta Garfunkel, née Jacobus was born 1897 in Berlin. Her father Albert was a textile merchant and owned apartment houses. At age 21, she left Berlin, marrying Emil Garfunkel, a investment banker in Vienna, with whom she had four daughters: Gerda, Irma, Susie and Eva. After losing most of his fortune in the stock market, Emil Garfunkel died of a heart attack. Meta entered a relationship with Alexander Schmitt: he owned a machinist business in Neusiedl am See in the Austrian province of Burgenland, was an avid soccer player, and raced motorcycles. They had two children: Robert Dieter Alexander Jacobus ("Foster" after coming to the US) and Heini Jacobus. In 1935, Meta Garfunkel travelled to Berlin to collect rent in her father's apartment houses, assuming that the Austrian name and passport would protect her from persecution. Nevertheless, she was arrested. After returning to Austria, Meta converted to Catholicism and had her two sons baptized in Gols, Burgenland.In 1938, Meta Garfunkel moved to Siebensterngasse 7 in Vienna with Robert and Heini. They would stay in the city throughout the war, escaping bombing raids and deportation, whilst Robert's father Alexander Schmitt fought for the German army on the Russian front, surviving the war and later a Russian prisoner of war camp. Until 1945, Meta and her children had to move several times. They shared an apartment in Lichtensteinstrasse 95 with the Rosenstrauch couple, later went to Waehringer Strasse 24, Konradgasse 2 and to Rotensterngasse. Their buildings were bombed twice, forcing the family to move. One time, in an air raid at Konradgasse on September 10th, 1944, Robert, his mother and his brother only narrowly escaped the collapsing building through an opening in the basement wall. During other raids, they hid in shelters, such as the catacombs underneath Stephansplatz. Fear of deportation was a constant in Robert's life at that time.Once Meta and her children escaped because Heini had a high fever, another time Robert and his brother were arrested at a Jewish cemetery and interrogated by the SS. Ultimately, an affidavit by their father, acknowledging the brothers as his sons saved the family. Only one of Robert Foster's half sisters - Gerda - managed to escape to England. Irma was murdered in Croatia, Susie and her husband were deported to the Sobibor extermination camp, and Eva perished close to Minsk. His maternal grandfather Albert Jacobus survived Theresienstadt and died in 1947. Robert Foster immigrated to the United States in 1949 with his mother and brother on a military troop ship. He attended high school right away, despite having received very little schooling in Vienna. Meta Garfunkel worked as a hatcheck girl, financially supporting the family. Robert Foster went on to Brooklyn College, was drafted into the army in 1954,and then continued his education at Columbia University, graduating in 1960. Robert Foster worked as a management consultant.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Gertrud Chapnick.
No full textApril 8, 2015Gertrude Chapnick, née Plaschgejs) was born 3/17/1922 in Vienna, Austria. Her father, Rudolf Plaschgejs, hailed from Czechoslovakia, where he was born in the town of Nitra in 1891. Her mother, Anne Marder, was born in 1893 in Odessa, Russia. The Plaschgejs lived in Klosterneuburgerstraße in the 20th district of Vienna, Brigittenau. Rudolf Plaschgejs was a travelling salesman and sold wallpaper. Getrude Chapnik had an older brother, Alfred, who was the first one to leave Austria for Switzerland. Gertrude left on a Kindertransport to England in 1938, but her parents perished in a concentration camp in 1942. She became a housemaid assistant at a wealthy family’s home in the small village of Colerne, close to Bath for a year. In 1940 she moved to London and worked at a children’s home for a few years before enrolling at nursing school. She became a registered nurse in 1947 and immigrated to America one year later. When she arrived in New York City, her brother was already living in Brooklyn, working as a kitchen assistant. Getrude Plaschgejs started to work at the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital in 1949. In 1953, Getrude married Harold Chapnik, a lawyer, and the couple had two daughters. Harold Chapnik died in 1969. Gertrude Chapnick retired to Cherry Hill, New Jersey.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Eve Suzanne Sabot.
No full textJuly 21, 2015Eve Suzanne Sabot, née Spitz was born 1931 in Vienna, Austria, the only child of Ing. Fred Spitz (born 1900) and Erna Spitz, née Lustig (born 1908). Fred Spitz was an electrical engineer who owned a store in the same building where the family lived (Starhemberggasse 39, Vienna IV). The family had a maid named Anna. Eve attended kindergarten and first grade in Vienna; her family liked to ski and Eve accompanied her mother on summer vacations in Austria.A relative named Harry Hollitscher provided affidavits for Eve and her parents shortly after the annexation of Austria. They traveled to Trieste, where the family embarked the "Saturnia". The ship departed on July 28, 1938. Most of the family's furniture had been sent to New York beforehand. Other relatives of Eve Sabot also fled to the United States or to England.After their arrival in Manhattan, Erna Spitz worked at a sewing line manufacturing gloves; Fred Spitz took any available employment to support the family. Eve was sent to live with a distant relative in Chicago, but returned 18 months later after her parents had settled in and rented their own apartment on the Upper West Side in New York City. Eve subsequently attended Public School 87 and Julia Richman High School, where she graduated in 1949. She then enrolled in a three year course at Parsons School of Design. Eve Sabot worked in the textile industry throughout her professional life, designing and selling designs for pillow cases, sheets etc., as well as men's and women's wear.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Berthold Kuerer.
No full textAugust 11, 2015Berthold Kuerer was born 1927 in Vienna, Austria, the son of the physician Heinrich Kuerer (born 1882 in Vienna) and Ida Kuerer (born Ida Schrottmann, 1892 in Czechoslowakia). Berthold had a brother Frank and a sister Vilma. They lived in a spacious apartment in Heiligenstaedterstrasse 72, in the 19th District of Vienna. In the same apartment was also his father's medical office. After the annexation of Austria, Berthold was forced to attend the Chajes-Realgymnasium in the 2nd District. His father's medical office was seized and the family was compelled to move into a smaller apartment and to dismiss their non-Jewish housemaid. Frank Kuerer was arrested for 24 hours and was forced to scrub the streets. His 24 year old sister managed to escape to the US via Czechoslovakia. In the US, she obtained visas for her parents and for Berthold. On October 25, 1939 they left Austria and took the Italian ship "Saturnia" in Trieste. They arrived in the United States on November 9, 1939. Berthold’s brother fled eventually from Latvia to the U.S. Berthold Kuerer lived in Manhattan and in the Bronx from 1939 to 1955. There he graduated school with a D.D.S. from Columbia University in 1955. In 1956 Berthold Kuerer moved to New Jersey.Austrian Heritage Collectio