At age twenty two, Malvine married Sigmund (“Regi”) Mahler from Lipnice, a village in Bohemia. I know of no recounted nor written story about how they met. They married in Prerau in 1880, and then lived in Vienna, where Sigmund had worked to support himself through high-school and then was hired as a clerk for the Südbahn railway.
They had six children, and lived in a cramped Viennese apartment; my Granny’s first bed was a dresser drawer, and her closest brother, Robert, slept on two chairs pushed together end to end. The children were raised speaking high Viennese German, and their parents used Czech as their secret language for things they wished to discuss privately.
Sigmund sadly died when he was 42 in 1897; he had experienced some type of depression and fell fatally ill with pneumonia while undergoing the innovative treatment of cold- water therapy. (Vienna, of course, had all the latest psychological and psychiatric treatment.)
Benno, the eldest of five sons was then 14 years old; little Annerl ( my Granny), was only three years old.
“ Although the maid helped, Mother’s work was never done. Soon after my father’s death, she moved into a large apartment and rented out rooms to boost her small [widow’s] pension; besides her six children, she and the maid had to look after two subtenants. The convenience of electricity was not yet available. Light came from kerosene lamps that were lit with paraffin and had to be cleaned carefully each day and refilled, which smelled unpleasant. Wood and coal were used for heating. Every room had a stove, which had to be cleared of ashes and refilled daily with fresh paper and kindling, and the fire had to be stoked regularly to keep it going…”
Every summer Malvine took the children two weeks early from school; they moved to the country and stayed with the local peasants in the village of Scheideldorf. The cooler country summers and life outdoors with farm animals and food was a healthy choice! This tradition had already begun with Sigmund, who discovered the village and starting bringing his wife and children here annually. Little Anna’s earliest memory, at age 2 1/2, is being carried in her father’s arms as he was walking back to the village through the forest.
I have inserted some passages from my grandmother Anna’s memoirs ( soon to be published – spring 2020 in Vienna!), which describe some of the influences in Malvine’s life which gave her strength and support to enable her to rear six children as a young widow. Of course, Anna’s own memories and opinions shine through!
Although everyone knew we belonged to the despised Jews, Mother was very respected in the village [Scheideldorf]. Since she went to church every Sunday with the farmer’s wife from whom we rented, we were considered to “belong.” Years later, when I was able to reason, Mother explained to me: “When you live among a pack of wolves, you have to howl with them, otherwise they’ll tear you to bits.”
My mother was not really devout, though she never failed to attend synagogue for the high holidays, and she fasted. She never demanded that the youngest children should share the fast, but she did demand it from the older ones, which was met with hearty opposition. There were arguments during which my mother would make disparaging remarks about my father’s side of the family, to whom she referred alternately as gypsies and Apekeure, a Hebrew word for uneducated.
Malvine did her best to educate the six children in the Jewish Orthodox traditions she had learned from her father, teaching them to pray with tefillin. This was something that contributed to Anna’s alienation from religion. She wondered how women were supposed to connect and pray to God!
“How the female sex could make itself heard remained a mystery since
there were no tefellin for women. It appears, the Jewish Lord could not care less about us.”
My Granny pays tribute to her mother’s cheerfulness throughout the memoir.
Mother had a blessed temperament. With her cheerful disposition, she saw the comical side in everything. I can’t recall ever having seen her sad or weeping. She quickly flew from distress and banished it from her mind. She had already been cheerful as a child, but she claimed that she drew her sunny spirit from the “green books.”
These “green books”—named after their green bindings—had become the frequent subject of heated debates in our family; for many years, I did not understand what they contained. Only later, did I discover that they contained theosophical philosophy. They were translated from the American, and mother studied, indeed, venerated them.
She needed peace and quiet for this undertaking, and her children and busy household never granted her any rest throughout the day; being an early bird, she arose at five o’clock in the morning and set off on her usual morning stroll with her “green books.” The peasants knew the solitary rambler; she gossiped a little with each of them as they worked, and she often shared some humorous anecdotes, back at home, over breakfast. ….As a child, I became acquainted with the names of Ralf Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Prentice Mulford, or William Walter Atkinson, and Los Angeles, where all those books came from, became as familiar to me as if it were a suburb of Vienna.
I so appreciate and take encouragement from my great grandmother’s approach to life; taking time for herself to nurture her soul and peace of mind, even in the midst of continuous family responsibilities.
I also love Anna’s description of her mother, Malvine, actively “flying from distress” and intentionally “banishing it from her mind”. A word to the wise, as I tend to empathize deeply alongside individuals and peoples in situations of suffering, and stayed mired in my sadness.
“The wise woman is she, who is too full of joy to be overwhelmed by trouble.” One indeed does need to intentionally nurture one’s deep sources of joy to face life’s troubles.
Malvine was also known for her bursts of uncontrollable laughter! Below is an excerpt from Book 2 of Anna’s memoir, where she recounts a scene from her wedding to Simon (“Wolf”Aszkanazy ( July 21, 1918) and describes the Mother of the bride – Malvine’s “dreaded laughing fits”.
Since Benno had become a prisoner of war of the English, brother Leo took the paternal position under the Chuppah, next to Mother. Wolf’s parents likewise stood as his witnesses, and the cantor intoned his whiny chant. I didn’t dare look at Mother so that she wouldn’t get one of her dreaded laughing fits.
Then, at the rabbi’s behest, my betrothed placed the plain wedding ring on my finger, pronounced the prescribed “Li,” which I also repeated after the rabbi. He then handed us a chased silver chalice of very sour wine, from which we both drank; and then, Rabbi Dr. Bach pronounced us man and wife.
Had it ended there, everything would have gone smoothly and without incident. But the cantor hadn’t yet warbled enough for his money. To my chagrin, he began to sing once more. Men should only sing at a distance; otherwise, it looks ridiculous and unflattering. More so for a fat, older man with bulging lips and an ugly ragged beard standing at arm’s length! Chaos broke out when he “squeaked” the highest note.
The wedding guests were more polite than the audience at an opera––who, in such instances, would let out a loud gasp that travelled [through the hall] like a wave. They [the guests] remained quiet, but Mother held her lace handkerchief before her eyes and was shaking so that it innocently passed for a mother’s harmless tears. But I knew better. There it was, the dreaded laughing fit. I pressed my bridal bouquet in front of my face, as she did her handkerchief, and only the cantor’s eyes warily noticed our ill-concealed outburst, which we desperately endeavoured to suppress.
This is one gene I have definitely inherited from Malvine, as has our youngest son! “Dreaded laughing fits” continue down the generations to make fun family stories which are recounted often!
Helpful Gutmann relatives from Malvine’s father side came alongside and helped her out when she was widowed.
In this time of hardship, I became aware of a rich relative of my mother’s. The head of the multimillionaire House of Gutmann, who owned numerous coal mines and steelworks, was her second cousin, and he generously came to her aid. Mother was far too proud to accept charity, but she benefitted from his financial help from time to time and sometimes also from advice regarding my brothers’ studies. She also received all the coal our household required, free of charge. For many years, I was under the impression that coal was a commodity for which one only had to tip the delivery men.
This company also employed Benno, Leo, and for a time Oskar and Robert. Fritz studied Architecture and eventually opened a successful business ( Bruder/ Braca Mahler), along with younger Robert and brother-in-law, Simon Aszkanazy, Anna’s engineer husband.
The other, poor branch of the family, to which my mother belonged, remained modest and bourgeois, known simply as Gutmann. It was a very good name, highly esteemed in financial circles, and my mother was chagrined to shed it upon her marriage to the very modest Südbahn clerk Sigmund Mahler. The name Mahler did not carry any attraction for her, particularly since she viewed them with utter disdain….
Her chief grievance, however, was the fact that neither my father, nor any of the Mahlers, really practiced the Jewish faith. To my mother’s infinite shock, my father even ate trefene (non-kosher) sausages; she suspected that he even ate pork out-side the house!
She sometimes told the story of how her learned, scholarly father had grilled his future son-in-law on his knowledge of the Talmud, whereby Sigmund Mahler had proven himself to be a despised Apekeure (Epicurean). That had pained him very much, but since he had promised his daughter, the apple of his eye, she had to be delivered to this Epicurean who even smoked on the Sabbath.
Enter: Gustav Mahler, Sigmund’s first cousin
But then, in 1897, an important event occurred for our family—and as I later learned, for the whole musical world—a still relatively unknown Gustav Mahler [only 38 years old], was appointed director of the Wiener Hofoper (Vienna Court Opera). For the first time, my mother uttered the Mahler name with respect since Gustav Mahler belonged to our family. The much vilified and defamed Mahler family came from the small town of Kalisch, in Bohemia, and as my mother only now found out, Gustav Mahler’s parents were my father’s cousins. A couple of brothers and sisters had married their cousins.
[ Gustav and Sigmund Mahler were first cousins – a fact we just discovered this past year, thanks to Kathy Simpkins’ skills with the internet and genealogy sites! Sigmund was five years older than Gustav, although his father, Leopold, was a younger brother to Gustav’s father, Bernhard. They married two women with the same last name, Herrmann, who were not sisters, but likely cousins. Until now, we knew only that they were some vague type of cousins from neighbouring villages.]
They had only been poor peasants; just a few of the children went to the big cities to study. They could not get any financial help from home and had to earn their own way through scholarships and tutoring. This is how Father finished high school and how Gustav Mahler graduated from the Music Academy.
I have read that Abraham Herrmann, Gustav’s maternal grandfather, was wealthy and had a piano that little Gustav could play on, and that his family encouraged his musical talents and education.
Gustav Mahler Sigmund Mahler
Naturally, the nomination of Gustav Mahler as director of the Hofoper ( Court Opera House) electrified our family and rather embarrassed my mother. Until then, only her own relatives had given her any pride, now she had to admit, if somewhat grudgingly, that my father’s family had been smitten by some Glanz und Wonne (Glory and Fame).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mahler
“Meanwhile, my eldest brother, Benno, discovered his talent for cutting silhouettes…. mother appealed to David von Gutmann to use his influence to have him accepted to the Academy of Commerce and to pay for his education. And so, Benno dutifully graduated from the boring Academy of Commerce, though his passion was for designing and painting. In mother’s opinion the arts were unprofitable, so he cut out silhouettes in his free time. He eagerly attended the opera and carefully followed Mahler’s movements with the baton when he conducted. He cut a whole series of characteristic movements and took them to the opera house one day. He introduced himself as Benno Mahler, which opened doors and gave him access to his uncle….
At home, with beaming eyes, he [Benno] reported that Gustav Mahler had pointed out some faults in the cutout motions, “because I never make such movements when I am conducting,” but he had still taken all the silhouettes and since Benno adamantly refused to take money for them, Mahler promised him free tickets to all performances that were not sold-out. He had called the porter, Mr. Hassinger, from the director’s stairway and introduced him to Benno, and he instructed him to give the boy free tickets whenever he came by.”
A link to some of Benno’s other artistic representations of his older cousin Gustav: done when Benno was 17 years old!
https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/the-man/portraits
“This opened up a new chapter in our lives. The young boys spent almost every evening at the opera. I was not taken because I was still too young. A real enthusiasm for music took hold of my brothers, and four of the five started to take music lessons. Benno, the eldest, chose the cello. Leo chose the violin. Oskar, as usual, did not wish to learn anything; in his opinion he had the finest ear in the family, so he would just listen and criticize. Fritz chose the violin, and Robert learned the piano.
At home, once the brothers moved beyond the elementary stages of learning, we had chamber music evenings. Since they had started to earn some money, they could afford a good teacher. Herr Palm, a second violinist from the Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna Philharmonic), came to our house to provide violin and cello lessons. Though he was always drunk, we listened with never-ending delight to all the current theatre gossip. Furthermore, Uncle Theodor’s wife, Louise, had become great friends with Gustav Mahler’s sister, Justine, who ran his household until he married. From her we also learned everything that went on at our famous relative’s house.
Again, the theme of anti-Semitism came up, and my brothers said that whenever Mahler appeared at the conductor’s podium, a war between applause and derogatory hissing would break loose in the auditorium until the first bars of the overture started. None of the factions wished to be guilty of the sacrilege of disturbing the music—the situation would have become nasty—so, as soon as the music began, the audience settled into perfect silence.
[Gustav’s] marriage with the much younger Alma Maria, daughter of the painter Schindler, provided never ending gossip for my mother and her sister-in-law, Louise. Although they had to acknowledge the seventeen year old bride’s great beauty, they were furious that he had married a Gentile.
That he had been baptized a Catholic, they reluctantly excused, “because otherwise he would never have become director of the Hofoper.” They quoted Heinrich Heine: “The baptismal certificate is the entry ticket to European culture.” “But to get married in church on top of it!” That was one concession too many. Then, they learned with satisfaction that the absentminded artist had forgotten the time of his wedding and kept the bride and her large retinue waiting a long time in church.”
Last year, while visiting Vienna, a display at the Jewish Museum mentioned Alma Rosé, a young violinist. Alma was a niece of Gustav Mahler. Gustav’s younger sister, Justine, married Arnold Rosé, concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic for over fifty years. Their daughter, Alma, managed to escort her elderly father to safety in England in 1939, but she returned to play music in Holland and was eventually caught and interned at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942, where she creatively managed and conducted a women’s orchestra which extended and even saved the life of some four dozen women.
See the movie: Playing for Time ( based on Fania Fenèlon’s memoirs).
And the book: Alma Rosé: From Vienna to Auschwitz by Richard Newman. https://www.amazon.com/Alma-Rose-Auschwitz-Richard-Newman/dp/1574670514] This book is an excellent and very detailed account of Alma Rosé’s story, painting a fuller picture of her life and background, along with many survivors’ recollections of Alma, their conductor and director.
Btw, there is an Alfred/ Alma Rosé and Gustav Mahler exhibit in the University of Western Ontario in London, ON; apparently Albert Rosé, Alma’s brother fled Vienna to the USA and at some point settled in London, Ontario.
https://www.lib.uwo.ca/news/2018/journey_of_the_mahlerrose_collection.html
https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/plaatsen/canada/london-on/gustav-mahler-alfred-rose-collection
However, it was only this year, while I was verifying the close cousin relation of my great- grandfather, Sigmund Mahler, with the now world famous Gustav Mahler, that I began to read more about Alma Rosé and came across her photo. Her face seemed so familiar, and I realized with a pang that I was seeing my mother in her; same jaw and chin and mouth – from their common Mahler great -grandparents. With another pang of mixed emotions, both family connection and grief, I also recognize my own jaw and chin, and that my middle son and of one of my niece’s.
Alma Rosé My mother: Leonore Aszkanazy Dolman
These stories, especially of Alma Rosé’s fate and that of my Great Uncle Benno, (the young silhouette cutter), who along with his wife, Grete Mendl Mahler, were transported from Vienna and murdered in Riga Latvia in 1942), have aroused deep trauma in me. There is also deep grief from longing to be able to talk of these matters with my mother – who has been gone from this world almost 31 years.
I have questions: while growing up in Vienna, did she meet Alma, her cousin, who was 15 years older than her? Perhaps….And many other questions…
Simultaneously, I understand why my mother said very little. She needed to close that chapter.
I’m thankful for my great grandmother’s lesson to me at this time. It is a choice of necessity for me, as our world’s dark deeds are heavy. Therefore, I am consciously choosing to close this chapter, to banish dark thoughts and flee from pain, past and present, and choose cheerfulness
A fellow follower of Jesus reminded me that all the darkness from humankind’s evil deeds, past, present and future, was placed on Jesus hanging on the cross. I am feeling anew how tremendously dark and heavy that burden was. And yet, Jesus went willingly and intentionally, in order to deal with it, once and for all, an atoning sacrifice to set our world right again.
A deeply comforting and hopeful reality, and a good place to pause.
More stories to come in due time 🙂
JenniEliz 