Addenda to the Joseph Braunstein Collection

Joseph Braunstein was born into a middleclass family in Vienna, Austria in 1892. Learning how to play the violin from a very young age, Braunstein started his studies in classical music at the University of Vienna shortly before World War I. After fighting in the Austrian army, Braunstein earned his doctorate with a thesis on Beethoven in 1920.

Besides his professional career in music, Braunstein was quite passionate about mountain climbing. After the split with the anti-Semitic “Deutscher und Oesterreichischer Alpenverein”, Braunstein and many others founded the “Alpenverein Donauland”, which was committed to democratic values and ideals opposing the racial exclusion of Jews and other minorities. After publishing a book on Stephan Steinberger, a monk who also happened to be an important mountaineer, Braunstein had sent a copy of this book to Pope Pius XI. As a response, Braunstein received a letter of papal goodwill and benediction. As Braunstein later recalled in an interview, this letter served him to receive an Italian transit visa during his emigration to the United States via Italy in 1940.

After emigrating to New York, Braunstein worked as a research librarian at the New York Public Library for 17 years. After his official retirement, he became a teacher at the Julliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and at the Mannes College of Music. He also traveled to Europe, particularly the Swiss and Italian Alps almost every summer. Joseph Braunstein was affectionately known as Giuseppe Sassobruno (Italian for Brown Stone). Joseph Braunstein was married to Emma Braunstein (née Gross). This so called “privileged” interfaith marriage helped Joseph to maintain his job in Vienna until their emigration. When Emma became permanently ill, her sister Hildegard Gross, who also emigrated to the United States, took care of her.