Frances and Gustave Kauders Family Collection
Scope and Content Note
The Frances and Gustave Kauders Family Collection holds the papers of this couple, as well as of their family members. The collection includes family correspondence, official and educational documents, and correspondence with official agencies regarding immigration and restitution with related documentation. In this finding aid Franziska and Gustav Kauders are referred to by the Americanized forms of their names, Frances and Gustave Kauders.
Documentation of Frances and Gustave Kauders will be found throughout this collection's first series. Included are educational documents from schools they attended, official documents such as passports, birth and marriage certificates, identification cards, and papers related to Gustave Kauders's military service in World War I. A small amount of other personal papers is also present.
Much of Series I consists of family correspondence, with the bulk of it personal correspondence sent from Frances Kauders's parents and family members to her during the 1920s. There are also several folders of official correspondence with accompanying documentation that focus on the couple's unsuccessful efforts to aid Paula, Karl, and Franziska Schostal (Frances's mother, brother, and sister-in-law) in leaving Czechoslovakia before they were deported, along with some correspondence from the family during these efforts.
Papers of some of the extended Kauders family members are also part of Series I, including some educational and official documents of Gustave Kauders's father and uncle, as well as documents related to marriages in his mother's family.
Series II holds correspondence and documentation related to Frances and Gustave Kauders's efforts to receive restitution for losses they sustained due to having to flee Austria. Related photocopied documents in handwritten Hebrew included in this series may pertain to members of the Kauders family.
Dates
- Creation: 1829-2001
- Creation: Majority of material found within 1925-1942
Language of Materials
The collection is in German, English, Czech, and Hebrew, with very small amounts of Hungarian and Spanish.
Access Restrictions
Open to researchers.
Access Information
Collection is digitized. Follow the links in the Container List to access the digitized materials.
Use Restrictions
There may be some restrictions on the use of the collection. For more information, contact:
Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011
email: lbaeck@lbi.cjh.org
Biographical Note
Franziska Schostal was born in Brünn (today Brno, Czech Republic) on November 20, 1904, the daughter of Otto Schostal and his wife Paula (also called Pauline, née Wildner). She had an older brother, Karl. Otto Schostal was proprietor of Schostal and Mendl, a banking and commission business. The first school Franziska attended was the Evangelische Privat-Volks- und Bürgerschule, followed later by the Städtisches Mädchenlyzeum verbunden mit reformrealgymnasialen Oberklassen, both in Brno.
Gustav Kauders was born October 3, 1894 in Vienna to Siegmund Kauders and his wife Regine (née Schlesinger). Siegmund Kauders had founded a wine wholesale business in Vienna in 1868 and was an imperial councilor, as well as a recipient of the Order of Franz Joseph's Knight's Cross. Gustav Kauders's early schooling was at the Allgemeine Volksschule of the first district in Vienna, followed by the K.K. Akademisches Gymnasium in Vienna. He later studied at trade school and took 3 semesters of legal studies at the University of Vienna. With the permission of his father, he volunteered for the Austrian military in 1913 as an artillery officer. He served until November 15, 1918 in World War I, where he fought on the Italian front and achieved the rank of Oberleutnant, with eight commendations. After the war he worked in his father's wine wholesale firm, responsible for the export and import of wine to other European countries, including frequent travel in this capacity.
In 1921 Franziska Schostal married Gustav Kauders; they had three children, Heinz (later Henry), Georg (later George), and Hanna (later Hannah). In December 1938 they traveled to Italy, and by 1939 the family were living in Tel Aviv. After they received their affidavits for American visas they traveled to the United States via Baghdad and Bombay. By 1941 the family was living in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, New York. Franziska and Gustav became American citizens in 1946; their names were Americanized to Frances and Gustave Kauders.
Extent
0.75 Linear Feet
Abstract
The Frances and Gustave Kauders Family Collection holds the papers of this couple, as well as of members of the Kauders family, and correspondence from the Schostal family. Topics found in the collection include the immigration of Frances and Gustave Kauders, some details of their early lives as expressed in family correspondence, and the failed emigration and subsequent deportation of members of the Schostal family. The collection includes family correspondence, official and educational documents, and correspondence with official agencies regarding immigration and restitution with related documentation.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged in two series:
Separated Material
Duplicate photocopies of documents were removed from the collection during archival processing of the collection.
Processing Information
A number of folders in this collection included titles and evidence of original order, therefore contents of folders were kept together to form Series I, with folders related to restitution placed in Series II. The folders of Series I were rearranged in alphabetical order by title. A few untitled folders were assigned titles and larger folders were subdivided by content. Duplicate photocopies of items already in folders were removed from the collection.
Subject
- Kauders, Gustave, 1894- (Person)
- Kauders, Frances, 1904- (Person)
- Schostal family (Family)
- Kauders family (Family)
- Schlesinger family (Family)
- Title
- Guide to the Papers of the Frances and Gustave Kauders Family 1829-2001 AR 25705
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Processed by Dianne Ritchey
- Date
- © 2018
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Description is in English.
- Edition statement
- This version was derived from Frances_and_Gustave_Kauders_Family.xml
Revision Statements
- August 23, 2018 : Links to digital objects added in Container List.
Repository Details
Part of the Leo Baeck Institute Repository
