34 research outputs found
AHC interview with Miriam Mostow
No full textSeptember 17, 2014Digital recordingBorn in 1932, Miriam Mostow née Nachimowicz grew up in the 2nd district of Vienna. Her parents were Polish citizens and ran a feather business in cooperation with Miriam's paternal gradparents in Poland. The family liked to spend their leisure time in the spa "Dianabad". Miriam attended a Montessori preschool near Naschmarkt until the family left Vienna in August 1938 with the help of an uncle, who provided an affidavit. They went to Le Havre, France by train, stayed there for roughly one week and continued their journey to New York by boat. The family spent their first week in New York in their uncle’s apartment in Washington Heights, before moving on to the Bronx. Miriam Mostow attended elementary school in Washington Heights. She later went on to Junior High 44 in the Bronx, Roosevelt High School as well as NYU, where she studied to become a teacher. Throughout her professional career, Miriam Mostow worked at several schools. She never returned to Austria, but made several trips to Europe.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with BW.
No full textFebruary 24, 2015BW was born 1929 in Poland. He attended primary school in the morning and Hebrew school in the afternoon. His family was orthodox and lived in a small town in Galicia, three hours away from Krakow. When the war broke out in September 1939, the family left their town and went to Soviet-occupied Poland. In June 1940 the family was deported to Siberia, where they had to chop wood in a labor camp. After their release, they settled for two tears in a formerly German area along the Volga River, before returning to Poland in 1946 and eventually ending up in a DP camp in Bavaria, Germany. They immigrated to the United States, arriving in New York City in July 1949.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with HW.
No full textFebruary 24, 2015HW was born 1929 in Antwerp, Belgium, the first child of Maurice and Gisella M. They lived in an uncle’s apartment building; her father was a Hebrew teacher, her mother was a housewife. In 1935, HW's father was offered a teaching position in Linz, Austria. 2 years later, HW's brother was born. The family spoke German at home. At the time of the Anschluss, their synagogue in Linz was destroyed, and Maurice M. was arrested for two weeks. Three months later, he obtained a passport to go to England, hoping to bring his family along later. This turned out to be impossible: HW was sent back to Belgium in 1939, while her mother and her brother were deported to Theresienstadt and later perished in Auschwitz.When the Nazis invaded Belgium, an aunt and an uncle brought HW to France, where she stayed at a catholic convent. With the help of OSE, Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants, she was brought to Switzerland, where she first lived in a children's home in Basel and later with a family in Zurich, until she immigrated to the US in March 1947 and reunited with her father. She attended public high school in Pennsylvania, and then moved to Washington Heights in Manhattan, NY, where she worked as a French and German translator. She got married in 1955 and had three children.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Paul Sub.
No full textJune 23, 2015Paul Sub was born 10/12/1930 in Vienna, Austria, the only child of John Sub and Anna Sub, née Delfin. The family lived in Vienna’s 16. district, Ottakring. John Sub had a grocery store and the pianist in a 4-men band, performing in cafes, bars and other venues around Vienna. Anna Sub owned and operated a coffee shop near the famous “Prater” park.Paul attended Hebrew school, but then changed to public school in order to avoid anti-Semitism directed against students. After the annexation of Austria, numerous family members became victims of anti-Semitic humiliation and persecution before being able to flee the country. Anna Sub was forced to scrub the sidewalk when two storm troopers approached her in her café. John Sub was forced on a truck with others but rescued by his wife and son. During the pogrom in November 1938, the family hid under the kitchen table of their apartment, seeking shelter from rocks thrown at the building. All stores at ground level were vandalized. In March of 1939, Paul and his mother fled to Amsterdam, where they embarked on a ship to New York. Relatives in the USA had provided affidavits of support. Her coffee shop was sold under its real value; the grocery store was closed and left behind. Paul’s father had left two months earlier, emigrating to Shanghai. He was reunited with Paul and his wife when arriving in New York in 1942.The family stayed in the Bronx for the first few years, and then moved to Brooklyn. John Sub worked as a presser in a laundry business, and his wife took a job in a supermarket. Paul Sub attended Lafayette High School and then Baruch College's business school in Manhattan.. He married at age 23 and took over a clothing store that his father had opened for him; it was later converted into a liquor store. Additionally, Paul Sub owned bars and night clubs in New York City.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Marcell Gerhard Klein
No full textNovember 25, 2014Digital recordingMarcell Gerhard Klein was born 1933 in Vienna, Austria. His mother Anna Klein, born 1906, was a home keeper, and his father Sigmund Klein, born 1900, worked in the fur business. Marcell had a brother and a sister. The family liked to take walks in the wooded areas surrounding Vienna. After the Anschluss, the family experienced a variety of anti-Semitic actions first hand: Sigmund Klein was denied permission to work, the family's apartment was searched by the SS and Anna Klein was put on trial for mistreating their maid. She also was made to scrub the street. Marcell Klein's maternal grandparents, owners of an apartment building that was later confiscated by the Nazis, decided not to escape; they were deported and murdered in Theresienstadt (Their apartment building was returned to the family after the war and sold.) The Klein family managed to obtain visas for the UK with the help of an uncle who was a British citizen. They left Vienna in 1938 by train. It was stopped and searched on the way to the English Channel. His father Sigmund was taken away and beaten up in the process, but was able to continue the journey. The family lived in London from 1938 until being detained as "enemy aliens" in 1940 in the Rushen internment camp, where living conditions were quite comfortable. They were released in 1943 and went back to London, where they endured the bombing raids, only protected by a so-called Morrison shelter: a steel table designed to hide underneath. The Klein family immigrated to the United States in 1946, settling at first on 190th Street in Manhattan. Marcell Klein started working at age 16. He was with Witco Corporation for most of his career as a technical salesman.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 Susanne Mary Soo.
No full textApril 14, 2015Susanne Mary Soo, née Finsterbusch was born on 12/17/1932 as the child of Edmund Finsterbusch, a Viennese physician, and Flora Finsterbusch, née Bollag. When Susanne was approximately two years old, her parents were divorced, and she lived with her mother and her maternal grandparents - Paula and Jakob Bollag - in Gonzagergasse 5 in Vienna. Susanne had two half siblings from her mother's first marriage named Robert and Liselotte Bloch.After some incidences following the Anschluss in 1938, Susanne, her mother and her half siblings took a train to Switzerland. The family first lived in the village of Wildhaus in the canton of St. Gallen until moving to Zurich in April of 1939. Susanne was baptized, as her mother feared a German invasion of Switzerland. She attended primary school and then high school. Her half brother worked as an engineer in Switzerland and later emigrated to Venezuela; her sister got married in Switzerland. After Flora Finsterbusch's death on 9/9/1945, Susanne lived in Buttes in the French part of Switzerland. At age 16, she went to England for a year, lived with a family and attended school; throughout that time, she was financially supported by her half sister Liselotte. After returning to Zurich, Susanne attended a "Kaufmannsschule" (business school) and worked as a secretary from 1949 to 1956. She then immigrated to the US and took a job as a trilingual secretary until meeting her husband Edward Soo.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Kurt Weiss.
No full textMay 19, 2015Kurt Weiss was born 2/7/1930 in Krems an der Donau, Austria. His grandfather was Joseph Popper, an adjutant to the Kaiser. The family owned a liquor manufacturing plant and nine liquor stores all over Austria, one of them in Vienna’s 16th district, Ottakring. Kurt Weiss grew up in a wealthy family, where maids and governesses took care of the household and his education. At the age of four, Kurt and his family moved from Krems to Ottakring in Vienna. After the Anschluss, his parents had to scrub streets in Vienna, and after Kristallnacht SS-troops were looking for Kurt’s father, who had hidden on a farm in the 22nd district in the outskirts of Vienna. His family joined him there for three months, before they acquired emigration papers and left for Zurich by train. They stayed there for several months, before going on to le Havre and embarking on the “President Roosevelt” for New York. A randomly chosen pickle dealer, picked from a Manhattan phonebook, had provided affidavits for the US.They arrived on August 12th, 1939. Their first shelter was provided by HIAS. Kurt Weiss worked for a blind man’s fruit stand, whilst his father painted fire escapes. The Weiss family settled in the Bronx. After attending DeWitt High School, Kurt Weiss enrolled at City College; in 1953 he earned his Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. He was drafted from 1953 to 1956 and then embarked on his career in the chemical industry, working for a corporation in Ludwigshafen, Germany that produced Styrofoam. Kurt Weiss retired in 1989 to Monroe, New Jersey.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC interview with Marietta Kalin.
No full textJune 8, 2015Marietta Kalin, née Blaustein was born 9/13/1934 in Vienna, Austria, the only child of Maximilian Blaustein (born 12/18/1900) and Joseffa Blaustein, née Haas (born 2/25/1905). Her father Maximilian owned a millinery factory in Vienna’s Mariahilfer Strasse, where the family resided in the same building. Marietta's mother had attended a conservatory and liked to sing, play the piano and regularly attended opera performances in Vienna. After the annexation of Austria, Maximilian Blaustein's business as well as the apartment and other property was seized. He was forced to scrub the streets in Vienna and shortly thereafter fled the country. Marietta and her mother followed three months later (February 1939), sailing on the "Queen Mary" from Cherbourg, France to New York. Marietta’s grandparents remained in Austria: her maternal grandfather died of natural causes in 1940; her maternal and paternal grandmothers both perished in concentration camps.In the US, Joseffa Blaustein was hired as a hostess; Maximilian Blaustein eventually established his own, fairly successful millinery business. Marietta attended a Catholic boarding school on Long Island and then public schools in Manhattan, where she graduated in 1952. She then studied psychology and marketing at New York University, graduating in 1956. She worked in advertising until her marriage in 1959 and started her second career later with a teaching certificate and a degree in special education. She worked in that field for 14 years until retiring in 1989 to Hackensack, NJ.Austrian Heritage Collectio
