On our way to the apartment in Neulinggasse.
Resting and last minute preparation before the commemoration gathering.
Jennifer’s talk:
Good afternoon and Grüss Gott to you all!
As we know all too well, racial intolerance, including anti-Semitism, is very present in today’s world, as it has been, sadly, throughout the ages.
For this reason, we are placing this family commemoration plaque here as a critical reminder that we must all remain vigilant to combat and to challenge intolerant leaders and poisonous rhetoric.
Today, we will share some of our own family story. Thank you for gathering with us this afternoon.
Team Wien! John, Uma, Anuschka, Peter (behind), Jennifer, Kathy
Introductions
My name is Jennifer, and these are my brothers, John and Peter. We are the three children of Lore Aszkanazy and her husband Claude Dolman, (both now deceased), and we three all live in Vancouver, Canada.
Our niece, Kathy Simpkins, whom we grew up with, and who was our mother’s God-daughter, has happily joined us.
We want to express our deep gratitude to Kathy, who harnessed her internet skills and knowledge of ancestry and genealogy sites to help us find, firstly, our Aunt Lisl, in 2016, filling in that hitherto “unknown” in our lives.
Then also, with Kathy’s persistent and skilled sleuthing, she enabled us to draw a good part of the Aszkanazy side of the family tree, previously unknown, and to fill in some gaps on the Mahler side.
John, Peter and I now know, as of this year, that we have living cousins in the USA, Switzerland and Israel. I will be meeting with a cousin from the Aszkanazy side in Lausanne next week, and we hope to meet others in the future!
Also joining us from Vancouver are Uma Kumar and Anuschka Elkei – both involved in translation of our grandmother Anna’s memoirs.
Uma has been the spark plug for this whole endeavor. I have had so many emails from Uma since we met in December 2015: “read this”, “watch this”, “check this out”, “contact this person”!! Thank you Uma: your enthusiasm and focus has gathered us together in Wien today!
And Anuschka: for a thorough and very readable translation job, along with detailed and informative footnotes, giving the reader extra historical, social and political information and context. Thank you Anuschka; you have gone above and beyond!
We also warmly welcome local acquaintances, who have graciously given time and effort to attend this afternoon.
Gerhard Burda, Rosy Weiss and Elisabeth Fritsch from Steine des Gedenkens and Steine der Erinnerung are in attendance.
I want to thank especially Gerhard for all his hard work in making preparations for this day, including designing the commemorative plaque and the bulletin.
We welcome Herbert Beck and his son Lukas, who are cousins by marriage through Margarete Mendl Mahler and whose family were good friends of our great Uncle Benno Mahler and Grete and their son Felix Mahler and wife Leah.
Lukas and I met in 2013 via email through geneology.com when Lukas found a post I had listed in 2006 trying to find connections to Benno Mahler and brothers, who were brothers to our grandmother Anna. Lukas emailed me for information, and now we are privileged to meet five years later in Wien!
Ernst Grabovszki, publisher of Danzig & Unfried is here with his fiancée, Irina Brantner.
Herr Grabovszki is hoping to publish the entirety of our Grandmother’s memoirs in German next year, 2019.
We are also hoping to publish an English version, probably on line….hopefully also in 2019!
And National Fond will be publishing relevant parts for their series: Erinnerungen: Lebensgeschichten von Opfern des Nationalsozialismus.
Frau Karin Krantz is attending today, and we want to acknowledge that she and her family placed a Steine der Erinnerung at Reisnerstrasse 6, where Benno and Grete Mahler lived, until they were moved by the Gestapo in 1941 to Karl LuegerPlatz 2 from where they were deported to Riga, Latvia on February 6th,1942 – where they were then killed along with thousands of others.
Benno ( Anna’s oldest brother, and our great – Uncle), and Grete Mendl Mahler ( above); their former home (below).
Thank you Frau Krantz for remembering them, along with the other four families deported from their building and for time to meet last night over supper in your neighbourhood.
And, a very warm welcome also to Austrian friends of Uma Kumar who have come to remember our family with us today.
Remembering the family
As you can see from the bulletin and the commemoration plaque, we are remembering the four members of the Aszkanazy family who lived at Neulinggasse 14 from 1923 until March 1938.
(Anna, Lisl (18), Lore (16), Simon; from left to right; summer 1937 at Altenmarkt property).
We will begin by honouring our maternal grandfather, Simon Aszkanazy.
Simon was born in Sanok, Galicia in Poland in April, 1882.
He was the second of five children born to Natan Aszkanazy and Amalia Malka Mayss.
Natan and Malka ran the Hotel Warszawski in Sanok, and they were not well to do.
( This hotel is still running in Sanok today! )
Hotel Warszawski, with my great grandmother, Amalia, Elizza (cousin) and Joszeph Aszkanazy, great Uncle, ( our grandfather Simon’s younger brother), who ran the hotel.
Simon excelled at school, and his name is found on the honour roll of the Sanok Gynmasium. He moved to Lviv ( Lemberg) in the Ukraine where he completed high-school and earned an engineering scholarship to study in Vienna at the Technische Universität Wien.
Throughout his schooling, Simon endured scarcity and supported himself by tutoring. He also regularly sent money home to help his parents and younger siblings.
“ When he completed his civil engineering degree, [Simon] could not find a position in Vienna, as Christians owned all construction companies and basically didn’t hire Jews. That was during the fiercest Mayor Lueger period – in 1902.”
So Simon took jobs in Bosnia, Dalmatia, Croatia and Budapest.
In March 1918, Simon was introduced to Anna Mahler, through her elder brother Oskar. Anna had five older brothers, and her widowed mother, Malvine and the brothers were all busy searching for a suitable husband for twenty- four year old Anna, who appears to have been rather choosy over the years!!
This time was different!! Simon and Anna were immediately attracted to one another and had much in common to talk about, including building projects, as Anna worked in the office with her architect brother Frederick.
They were married on July 21, 1918 in Anna’s home in Vienna and lived for a year in Budapest where Simon worked. When the communists rose to power, they fled back to Vienna, and Simon joined brothers Frederick and Robert in Brüder Mahler & Co.
Simon&Anna; Wedding day: July 21, 1918
Two daughters were born, Elisabeth ( Lisl) in July 1919, and Leonore ( Lore) in May 1921.
Simon worked hard for his family; he was a responsible husband and father and, he had a good sense of humour. He and Anna had a happy marriage, although perhaps somewhat non- traditional for those times, as Anna travelled, often on her own, to various international writers’ and women’s events.
Anna Mahler, a bright young woman, was an “autodidact”. Her mother, Malvine Gutmann, was widowed when Anna was 3 years old, and Malvine raised the 5 older brothers and Anna. ( photo of Benno, Leo, Oskar, Frederick, Robert, Anna -1896).
As Anna could not access higher education because of limited finances and few schools for girls’ education in her day, beginning at the age of fifteen, her mother brought her to observe parliamentary sessions held in Vienna, in the era of Masaryk. Anna began to develop an awareness of politics and the wider world.
In the later 1920’s, when her own little girls were busy in elementary school, Anna began to become involved with various international women’s movements, seeking peace and freedom for the war- torn world.
She spoke at the League of Nations in Geneva in 1930, presenting research gathered by herself and other women in the International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom on “The Problem of Statelessness”, an issue which plagued thousands of Viennese and other Europeans after the dissolution of the Austro- Hungarian Empire in 1918.
Anna was a founding member of the Women’s Organization for World Order ( WOWO) which became connected with the Scandinavian eco- feminist movement under Elin Wägner.
Anna also started a Viennese school for women to learn how to speak in public and to be educated in relevant political matters of the day, both local and international.
This public speaking school began right here in the fourth floor family apartment at Neulinggasse 14 in 1929; initially only five women attended, and after it grew to 60 women and the living room was overcrowded, a hall was rented outside, with numbers eventually growing to 200!
In 1932, while on a visit to Berlin, Anna heard Goebbels and Goering speak at a political rally.
She became increasingly aware of the threat of growing fascism and anti- Semitism. Anna even looked abroad in England and New York for possible places to move. In February 1938, she renewed her own passport along with provision of visas for North and South America, and she also had passports made for Lisl and Lore, and asked Simon to return from his work abroad especially to sign and validate the girls’ passports. They were ready for flight!
Anuschka’s reading:
On March 12th, 1938, Anna and her women’s Call Club were in the streets of Vienna trying to distribute 10,000 pamphlets opposing the Anschluss when they received news that Nazi Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop and Britain’s Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax had come from their meeting smiling ear to ear.
Anna rushed home. Late that night, her husband Simon returned from a business trip in Switzerland.
They were up all night, discussing what to do and where to go….they decided they would all go to Switzerland.
Anna writes in her memoir that:
“early in the morning of March 13th, when they arrived at the station, the Westbahnhof was empty.
We hardly saw any rail employees. Nobody was at the turnstiles. Wolf went to get tickets and came back and gave me three.
“Three?” I asked. “But where is yours?”
“ I’m not going to leave our household to the bandits. I’m not afraid. You go with the children; that’s the main thing. I’ll follow later with all our things.”
Speechless I stood there, my mind racing. “But we decided, all four of us….”
The children clung to him, but he said: “It’s late. You have to go. The train will leave any minute.”
I embraced him without a word and kissed him. He was unshaven and looked disheveled, pale, sick.
“Come with us!” I said in a barely audible voice.
“It’s okay, Mumilim. Have a safe journey.” And with that he led us to the carriage.
We boarded. Two ladies were in the compartment with us and when the train began to move, we waved to Paps, who looked strangely small and shrunken on the platform waving tiredly back at us.
Uma’s reading:
Anna, Lisl and Lore are safely in Switzerland, and have moved from the Hotel Sonnhof in Zürich to the Hotel de Russe in Geneva. It is now March 16th.
“ Fritz telephoned from Zürich. He read me a telegram he had received from Wolf in Vienna. It read: “ TRANSFER TO OEBRIST MATTHIAS INC. VIENNA, MARIAHILFSSTRASSE 79, TWENTY THOUSAND AND FIVE SWISS FRANKS. URGENTLY REQUIRED. WOLF.
After some back and forth, we decided Fritz should send a telegram stating that he would try to raise the amount, but that he wanted confirmation by letter.
The next morning, Wednesday, the 17th of March, Fritz telephoned again and said he had tried until midnight to call anyone he could possibly think of. The lawyers knew nothing. Brother Leo informed him Wolf had been arrested in our home on Monday the 15th, while he was busy packing the large vases in the salon. Since then he had been in police custody. Leo had sent Thea Stiller, the secretary, over with food and laundry. That was all he knew.
The children and I walked around like ghosts. What should we do? What could we do? We gobbled the newspaper stories. They were full of accounts of the occupation of Austria. Goebbels and Hitler had come to Vienna. There were victory parades, and there was mass enthusiasm from the “entire” population.
“ But what they don’t report is the story of those who sit at home and weep!” I raged.
I spent a sleepless night. I saw Wolf in jail before my eyes. Those crooks have it in them to torture him. I wanted to tear out my hair, and I sat there immobilized. Then I imagined he might be trying to bribe the Nazi crooks with the money request. That meant there was hope. I knew from German sources that many rich refugees had simply bought their way out of the country.
Finally morning came. Fritz telephone again. He said he would arrive in Geneva at noon.
“ What happened?” I yelled in shock.
He calmed me down. “Nothing”, he said. “ I just want to discuss with you in person what we should do. It’s not possible over the phone.”
That sounded better. We picked him up at the train station.
We walked over the Rhone Bridge to the Hotel de Russe, and there Fritz told the children they should go to their rooms because he needed to discuss business with me. When we got to my room, I asked what was up.
Without a word, he pulled a telegram out of his pocket, and I read: FRAU ASKANASY HOTEL SONNHOF ZÜRICH COME IMMEDIATELY HUSBAND DECEASED POLICE.”
We should mention at this point that we three are only alive because of our grandmother’s awareness of the imminent danger and our grandfather’s determination and speed in getting his family to safety. And also, that a few days delay resulted in tragedy for him and so many other families.
Simon had been arrested in this apartment on March 15th by eleven Gestapo. They imprisoned him in the Vienna Detention Centre ( the Hotel Metropol was taken over for this purpose). After a failed attempt at extortion, he was tortured and murdered. His niece, Elizza Zuckerberg, who had been going to the prison to demand release of her own father, was tasked with taking his corpse and seeing to his burial. In 1960, Anna visited Vienna and arranged for a gravestone to be erected over his grave at ZentralFriedhof.
The Hotel Metropol was demolished after the end of WW2, and today is found this memorial.
It makes us feel content, in a bittersweet sense, of course, to have all four members of this family together on this plaque, in front of the apartment in which they lived happily together for fifteen years.
As we remember them, may their memory be for a blessing. We will take a few minutes now to reflect as we hear music, and John will introduce this time.
John’s reading:
My Mother’s family were all passionate devotees of opera, at least the women. Little wonder, when standard-setting performances were available in this city whenever they wished to attend. We don’t have time to listen to an entire opera, but at the opposite end of the spectrum, with economy of notes and scale, but no less important, is the lieder repertoire, or art song. No composer is more important to lieder than the beloved Franz Schubert, a true son of Vienna. Of his more than 600 song compositions, one of the best known is Ständchen, or Serenade, set to words by Ludwig Rellstab. The words perhaps aren’t important to today’s commemoration, but the beautiful composition translates well to an arrangement for piano and cello. This piece was played [by John himself on piano] at my Mother’s memorial gathering, and it is repeated for all 4 family members commemorated today.
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/wellness-classics/694089652
(The piece we played is #8 in the second set of songs listed; Schwanengesang by Schubert- click on it to play)
After their flight from Vienna
Anna, along with Lisl and Lore, could not stay in Switzerland and went on to England for a few months. The day after Chamberlain met with Hitler (September 23, 1938), Anna purchased roundtrip tickets to Canada and the USA by boat. They departed from Liverpool on September 30, and arrived in Quebec City on October 8th. They made their way west to Vancouver Island, where they rented a motel, and took in guests as well as doing handicrafts to make a living. Anna used some of her funds retrieved from Simon’s offshore accounts and her political connections and much uphill effort to secure entry into Canada for a total of 29 other refugees, both Jewish and political. At that time, the Canadian government had a very limited openness to accepting Jewish refugees. Anna met in person and bargained with the openly anti – Semitic Director of Immigration, Frederick Blair.
(http://www.cbc.ca/history/EPISCONTENTSE1EP13CH4PA2LE.html).
After six months in the Sooke Harbour House Hotel, Anna and her daughters moved to North Vancouver where a new Altenmarkt home was built on ten acres of land in North Vancouver. Being good eco- feminists, they had a farm, grew fruit and vegetables and lived off the land!
Anna continued her women’s educational work, being a charter member of the Vancouver School for Citizenship in 1941. She also continued to write, plays, a novel and her memoirs.
Our Aunt Lisl, beautiful, creative and artistic, preferred city life and adventure and moved to the east of Canada. She married briefly and then spent eighteen years in Italy, working as a translator and accountant. On her return to Canada in 1970, she settled in Toronto and became active in the animal rights movement and also became politically active, running for the Green Party in a Toronto riding in 1988. Sadly, a family rift prevented us children from meeting our Aunt Lisl, until 2016, when she was found via the internet, amazingly still alive at the age of 96!! My brothers and I had several lovely and memorable visits with her in her Toronto home over the next nine months, until her death in January, 2017.
Our mother, Lore, two years younger than Lisl, was the tomboy of the family. She loved the country-side and tending animals. She had a scientific mind, and after obtaining a degree in Microbiology, she studied Medicine at the University of Toronto. She married our father, Claude Dolman, a professor at UBC. Lore later specialized and became the first neuropathologist in British Columbia, and the first woman president of her specialist association. She taught countless medical students (including all three of us!), and she was respected as being practical, decisive, an excellent teacher and a trusted confidante for many of her peers.
As her children, John, Peter and I remember her as being a devoted and loving mother and she was lots of fun! She was a role model for being industrious, unassuming and generous. Perhaps because of her traumatic experience and loss while fleeing this Vienna home as a teenager, she was so careful to teach us to be tolerant, to respect everyone, regardless of their beliefs and background, and not to become attached to our possessions. “ Your belongings do not matter!”
John, Peter and I grew up in Vancouver and had regular visits with our Granny, Anna. On Thursday afternoons, she came to our house, bringing pastries from Bon Ton, and we played card games, Old Maid being a favourite, and we laughed a lot together! On Saturday evenings, our family had supper at her home, and I recall her beautiful garden with a long driveway, where we children learned to ride our bicycles when young. She would serve fresh from her garden kartoffeln deliciously smothered in butter and parsley.
John, Peter and I on our Granny’s 70th birthday, with our mother, Lore.
At some point in our later childhood, our mother told us about her father Simon being killed by the Nazis, and that they had fled their home in Vienna. Actually, we visited Vienna the year before our Granny died; she met us there, and we did not visit this apartment, but did go to see the country property at Altenmarkt am der Triesting, ( also stolen by the Nazis), and we also met Milly ( Ludmilla), who had looked after our mother when she was a little girl. Milly named her daughter Lore!
Our Granny never spoke to us of the war and her life sadness, and always appeared full of life, cheerful and happy with a ready laugh and big hugs for us against her “prickly” diamond broach – calling us Johnili, Jennili and Peterli, and or “Bushili”!
She died in May 1970 at the age of 76; we children were 13, 11 and 9.
In my later teens, my mother gave me a beginning portion of the memoirs of Anna (100 pages of 800 total, self- translated into English from the German), so I began to learn something of Anna’s early years, her family history and Jewish heritage.
In my later twenties, I told my Mum that if I had a son, I would name him for her father, Simon. She seemed pleased. Our eldest son Gregory Simon, is now twenty- six years old. He has his great grandfather’s dark shapely eyebrows!!
Only after both our parents died did we find all of our grandmother’s writing, as well as her full lengthy memoir which was dedicated to Jennifer Elisabeth Dolman ( me!), in 1958, the year of my birth.
Since then, we have taken steps, slowly at first, but gathering speed in the past two years, to have the memoirs translated and published, both in English and in German.
I, personally, am very thankful that Anna’s voice will be heard; she tried to speak, in Austria, England and in Canada with warnings concerning what was darkly looming in Nazi Europe, but for the most part people, tragically, would not listen.
In spite of all the pain and loss she experienced, Anna wrote specifically in one of her writings that she would not allow herself to descend into hate for the Nazi “scum” or “swine”, as this would only lower herself to their level.
This is how we were raised by our mother.
Thank you all so much for joining us today, both to remember these sad events and to honour our family members. It is so very good to see all four names together on a plaque in front of their Vienna home in which they spent many happy years.
We appreciate that each one of you has set aside time to gather together with us this hot Sunday afternoon.
May we live seeking and working for peace and justice, and may we keep hope for that future day coming.
Our niece, Kathy will conclude our formal commemoration by reading a poem called Paradise by Friedrich Rückert.
Kathy’s reading:
Paradise – by Friedrich Rückert
In paradise there must flow
A river of eternal love!
And every tear of longing
Must be a pearl within it.
In paradise there must blow
A zephyr that stills pain!
And every sorrow, and yours too,
Must dissolve and disappear in it!
There stands the cool tree of peace
Planted in green spaces,
And under [that tree] it must be possible to dream
A quiet dream of peace and happiness.
Go in peace! Shalom!
Exploring the apartment building and photo sessions after the commemoration.
Team Wien along with Herbert and Lukas Beck, enjoying coffees and getting acquainted, sharing family letters and stories together after the commemoration time, at Arenbergpark, just across the street from our family apartment.
JenniEliz 