Jews -- Austria -- Vienna -- History

Addenda to the Joseph Braunstein Collection hold the private and professional documents of Dr. Joseph Braunstein, a musicologist and amateur mountaineer from Vienna. The addenda cover Braunstein’s successful emigration to the United States, as well as his activism at “Alpenverein Donauland” in Austria during the 1920s and 1930s. They further document many of his travels abroad.

The collection contains cards and pieces of notepaper with dedications by Erich Wolfgang Korngold to various individuals. The dedications are acompanied by Erich Wolfgang Korngold's signature and hand drawn excerpts from several of his compositions. One paper also includes the signatures of George Szell, Richard Tauber, and Willi Strecker. The handwritten cover page and first page of the overture to Korngold's one-act opera Violanta, with a dedication to Prince Friedrich Leopold, is also included.

This collection contains photocopies of documentation of portraitist Fred S. Boyko’s life in Vienna, immigration to the United States, and life in New York, particularly his education and career as a portraitist. Included are school certificates, documents pertaining to his emigration and naturalization, and applications, correspondence, exhibit booklets, and clippings regarding his career as a portraitist. Also included are items pertaining to members of Fred S. Boyko’s family, particularly articles about the work of his brother Hugo Boyko, an ecologist who worked to develop methods of salt water irrigation in the Negev desert in Israel.

The collection contains concert programs; photograph of the painting Tanzpause by Benjamin Vautier; letter to Dr. Eduard Ehrlich regarding his membership in the Verband der Wiener Fachärzte; letter to Dr. Eduard Ehrlich from the Ärztekammer für Niederösterreich regarding his official title; letter to Irene Ehrlich regarding affadavits for her family, along with an additional personal letter to her regarding emigration; articles about Karl Pick, on the occasion of his 60th birthday; photocopy of a photograph of Leopoldine Ehrlich; and medical diploma for Eduard Ehrlich.

The collection contains documents pertaining to Emil and Irma Neumann's life in Vienna before World War II and their emigration from Vienna to the United States, including identity cards; passports; documentations pertaining to their acceptance of the names Israel and Sara; documents pertaining to Emil Neumann's claim for property seized by the German government; and family correspondence.

The bulk of this collection documents the efforts of Kurt Kleinmann, an Austrian Jewish refugee in Switzerland to immigrate to the United States and the help he is offered by his distant cousin Helen Kleinman, a US citizen in New York City: because of Helen's official promise to marry Kurt, he could get out of Europe after struggling with the bureaucracy for more than seven months.

Letters and cards sent by Malvine, Leopold, and other members of the Fischer family in Vienna to daughter Mimi Fischer's family in New York City.

The collection contains documents pertaining to the life of Margarethe Geiringer, including a birth certificate; school certificate; workbook; citizenship certificate; confirmation of her assumption of the name Sara; German and United States passports; United States naturalization certificate; and photographs of Margarethe Geiringer.

The collection contains documents related to birth, education, marriage, employment, emigration, death as well as correspondence, writings, clippings and photographs for Martha Werner, her husband Berthold Werner, her sisters Hansi and Liesel, her parents Heinrich Gruen and Mathilda Goldstein, and her husband's parents Koloman Werner (Kohn) and Rosa Heumann. There are baptism certificates for several family members.

The collection contains items pertaining to Moritz Rosenfeld's work as a rabbi in Vienna, Austria, and Santiago, Chile, particularly speeches, articles, sermons, essays, and notes written by Rosenfeld.

This collection contains photocopies of documents pertaining to Anton Felix Perl’s emigration from Vienna to Canada, as well as has medical training and career as a physician in Canada, including school and medical certificates, correspondence, vital records, and photographs. Also included are family trees of the Perl and Richter families, as well as an essay, photographs, and clippings about Dr. Frederick Ludwig Eid, with whom Perl worked in Macklin, Saskatchewan.

The collection holds two texts about the life of Julius Sofer who worked for the Koh-i-noor button business in Vienna and Prague, as well as several pocket calendars used as diaries by him and his daughter Lisl. Their entries describe the people they met and their daily business. The entries from Lisl provide a glimpse into her preparation to emigrate as well as the start of her new life, as she called it, in the late summer of 1938.

The first three folders contain biographical material about Julius Sofer. Folder 1/1 holds a short biography of Julius Sofer which is part of the book “The boy who wore white stockings,” which tells the story of Peter Pollak, the son of Lilia Sofer and grandson of Julius. Folder 1/2 contains the transcription of Julius Sofer’s memoirs. They consist of a detailed story about his growing up in the small village Frideck, Moravia (Frýdek, Czech Republic) with a focus on his work at several businesses in Vienna. He joined the Koh-i-noor business in 1902. Folder 1/3 holds the death announcement of Julius Sofer, which was published in the newspaper Aufbau on February 1st, 1957.

Folder 1/4 contains empty envelopes which were sent from Vienna to New York during the 1940s. Most of them are addressed to Elizabeth Polk. They all have the censor stamps of the Nazi regime on them. The letters can be found in the Grace Polk Family collection addenda, AR 25489. Additionally, the folder includes a message written in 1946 to Julius Sofer regarding the transport of the belongings of Katharina Sofer in 1940.

Folder 1/5 holds some documents related to the S.S. President Roosevelt which traveled from Hamburg to New York in 1938. Hans-Gunther Pollak and his wife Elizabeth (Sofer) were onboard. Included are a list of passengers and the menu of the Gala dinner, as well as a deck plan.

Folder 1/6 holds two saving books from Harry George and Elizabeth Polk. They show the initial deposit of $4,340.- which was transferred from a Swiss account by Julius Sofer to each of his children. The entries show that it was used to cover large expenses, but also some larger withdrawals, which were probably used to pay for affidavits and later for a down payment for a house. Moreover, it includes the membership card for the Humanitas Lodge (Free Mason Lodge) of Julius Sofer and two printed address books of members of the club including Julius Sofer.

Folder 1/7 holds two address books. One includes many names from all over Europe but also notes from presumably Julius Sofer’s work around 1900. The other one was used in New York.

Three folders hold pocket calendars that were used as diaries. Folder 1/8 holds three pocket calendars. One was used by Julius Sofer, and two are from Lisl. The notes in the 1936 calendar describe the weekly meetings of Misses Sofer and Mister Pollak (Lisl’s later husband Hans-Gunther Pollak / Harry Polk) as well as their engagement in October. Folder 1/9 holds four pocket calendars that were used as diaries in 1938 and 1939. According to notes two of them were used by Lisl. She wrote about her immigration to New York under the title “start of a new life” in the calendar for 1938. Folder 1/10 holds two pocket calendars that were used as diaries by Julius Sofer in 1941 and 1944 containing aphorisms and addresses. The diary from 1944 also shows his finances from 1946 to 1948.

The collection contains documentation of the Thorsch, Hirschfeld, and Schott families, particularly vital records and family trees.

The Vienna Jewish community collection comprises archival materials that document only some aspects of Jewish life in Vienna during the period between the two World Wars, with the notable exception of one item that illustrates anti-Semitism in 1848. Published materials (not online) from the late 20th century describe some aspects of past Jewish life in Vienna and the onset of the Holocaust.