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Freud’s Butcher

A blog about Genealogy, Psychology, and Meat

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You are here: Home / Archives for Genealogy

Genealogy

Ich Bin Austrian: Some News and Some Musings

April 13, 2022 by Edie Jarolim 8 Comments

It was a long and circuitous route studded with emotional landmines, but today I can announce my arrival at the destination: My application for Austrian citizenship was approved. I was apprised of this fact via a phone call from the Austrian consulate in Los Angeles that I almost didn't answer. It was a late afternoon in January and I was watching Amy Schneider rout her

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A Typo & A Tragedy: Tracing My Aunt Edith

October 13, 2021 by Edie Jarolim 23 Comments

As my CV will tell you, I am an editor as well as a writer. Correcting spelling and grammatical errors is second nature; I'm one of those people who proofreads restaurant menus (though not, you'll be relieved to hear, out loud when I'm with other people). So perhaps it's fitting that I should end up contemplating the fate of my namesake aunt because of a typo on a

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A Tale of Three Siblings: Helena Neugasser, Siegmund Kornmehl, and Mina Allina

September 1, 2021 by Edie Jarolim Leave a Comment

Though I am not as good as I'd like to be at keeping up with this blog—and not as good as Google would like me to be, according to my rankings--many people have nevertheless managed to find my posts over the years. Most recently, I heard from my cousin Rena, whom I'd been trying to locate for years. Those marital name changes wreak havoc on genealogy.  She commented:    I

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Dual Citizenship: Pandemic Hair, DeJoy’s P.O. & Other Extremely Valid Reasons for Delay

July 27, 2021 by Edie Jarolim 20 Comments

It's been a while since I started working on my application for dual citizenship with Austria. So long that I forgot I had already filled out the preliminary forms and emailed them to the Austrian Consulate in Los Angeles. So long that I let my hair go Pandemic Grey and I am now I'm obsessing: If I put those grey-tressed images on my new Austrian passport (which I do not

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My Father’s Great Escape: A Few Answers, Far More Questions

June 18, 2020 by Edie Jarolim 6 Comments

When I talk about my parents' forced departure from Vienna, I generally focus on the tragic outcome: the death of almost all their immediate family members, except for my father's brother, Fritz. On this Father's Day, I'd like to focus on the bravery -- combined with what must have been ingenuity and a bit of luck -- that got Paul Jarolim to America from Nazi-occupied

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Paul & Fritz Jarolim: Post-War Rift & Reconciliation

June 9, 2020 by Edie Jarolim 6 Comments

Death and destruction take their toll on families in every war.  Less common to major conflicts, World War II also scattered Jewish families to the winds, robbing them of the comfort of a homeland to return to -- at least not without mixed feelings.  This was one factor in the rift between my father and his only surviving sibling.  A Bit of Background My

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The Jarolim Family: My Uncle Fritz & Military Resistance

May 25, 2020 by Edie Jarolim Leave a Comment

When it comes to my mother's family, the topic of military service is fraught. I've written before about the fact that my grandfather Herman Rosenbaum served in World War I but was not rewarded for his service by such basic decency as not being deported from Austria and sent to his death. I've also written about how I disliked the idea of my family members as victims. It

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This American Life (in Vienna): Parallel Playlists & Professions

April 30, 2020 by Edie Jarolim 7 Comments

Since I started  exploring my family stories on the pages of this blog, I've often wondered what my life would have been like had my parents not been forced to leave Vienna. Several Hypotheticals There are many variables I'm ignoring here, of course. My mother liked to say that my father fell in love with her because "she sounded like home" when they met in Brighton

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Survival in Vienna: My Badass Cousin Bruno

April 23, 2020 by Edie Jarolim 6 Comments

Here's another long-time-coming post from my blog archive, this one dating back to July when my cousin Andreas Oberndorfer first discovered this blog and contacted me. I wrote about Andreas's fascinating past, the missing links in his family -- and mine -- in the post Redheads, Resisters, & Red Light Districts, 1: Valerie Oberndorfer-Kornmehl.  I have many excuses,

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Rolled Beef, Wolf Blitzer & More Buffalo Kornmehls

April 8, 2020 by Edie Jarolim 10 Comments

In my backlog of unfinished posts, this one -- started in November 2019 -- seemed the most timely for this pandemic Passover. It's partly elegiac, which fits the current mood, but it's also about finding new family. And about endurance. A deli-denying newscaster plays a part in the narrative too. Fake news!  Rolled Beef, Redux In my dual roles of amateur family

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Valerie Oberndorfer

Redheads, Resistors & Red Light Districts, 1: Valerie Oberndorfer-Kornmehl

August 2, 2019 by Edie Jarolim 9 Comments

Freud's Butcher is the gift that keeps on giving. Just when I think I'm about finished with the story of my maternal grandparents' family, another member turns up. This time it is Andreas Oberndorfer, grandson of Valerie Oberndorfer-Kornmehl and nephew of my second cousin once removed, Bruno Oberndorfer-Kornmehl. My newfound Viennese relative appeared out of the blue.

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Dayenu: A Kornmehl Reunion in Vienna

April 19, 2019 by Edie Jarolim 2 Comments

Dayenu: It would have been enough. That phrase, repeated as a refrain in a Passover song that offers a litany of thanks for blessings piled upon blessings, has been going through my head sporadically since last October, when I gave a talk at the Freud Museum in Vienna. It's been an amazing journey, albeit one that's taken a rather meandering, bumpy path, from the inception of

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The Wedding Photo

July 26, 2018 by Edie Jarolim 7 Comments

It all started on a Facebook group I belong to: A posted photo of a Holocaust victim who had committed suicide rather than be captured by the Nazis led to a larger discussion of the topic. Somehow, I hadn't realized that many Jewish women and men took their lives, either to avoid being taken or to end their suffering at the death camps.  I commented that I didn't know

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Mystery Adoptions & Cryptic Crypts: Finding Cousin Erika

June 21, 2018 by Edie Jarolim 4 Comments

UPDATE: I was wrong. I hate that -- especially since it means the mystery of Erika remains unresolved.  What happened? Sometimes I think that if I wait long enough, relatives will turn up to resolve all my genealogical issues -- or at least clarify them.  The original post, below, posited that two childless members of the Kornmehl family, the Schweitzers,

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Freud’s World & A London Reunion

May 24, 2018 by Edie Jarolim 4 Comments

There's been a lot going on behind the scenes in the Freud's Butcher universe, but it's like the proverbial tree falling in the forest: If a blogger doesn't post about events, did they really happen? They did, and they will--and here's the proof. Psychology Today I've made many forays into discussions of Freud's life -- in order to provide context for my family's

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