This is Day 20 of the Family History Writing Challenge, wherein I continue the story of the Schmerlings, who returned to Vienna after the war. I realize I've spent more time with other members of my mother's family than I've spent with Adolf and Bertha Schweizer, the ostensible subjects of this challenge, but a bigger picture is beginning to come into focus. I also
Genealogy
From Vienna to Tel Aviv and Back: Reparations Gone Awry
This is Day 19 of The Family History Writing Challenge. I'll pick up where Day 18 left off, with Helene and Siegmund Kornmehl fleeing Vienna to Palestine. The context: I was describing the mystery of the late-life adoption of Erika by the subject of this challenge, Adolf and Bertha Schweizer, and went off on the tangent of the Kornmehl family's other late-life adoption, that
Adoption Musings, Part 2: What Happened to Helene Kornmehl?
On Days 18 of the Family History Writing Challenge, I turn again to a topic that I've touched on before: Nazi record keeping. In "Emigration Questionnaire Raises More Questions," I discussed the agency created to “accelerate the forced emigration of the Austrian Jews and (starting in October 1939) to organize and carry out their deportation." But it wasn't all
Late Life Adoptions, Part 1
This is Day 17 of the Family History Writing Challenge, the first of two about family adoptions. The second story is odd on the surface -- two adults adopting another adult who already has living parents --but I have a great deal of detail about it; that's for tomorrow. This first is more traditional, but may be even sadder. I don't know. More Analysis from the
A Meaty Heritage
It's day 16 of the Family History Writing Challenge and I'm feeling grateful that I'm not a vegetarian. It's bad enough to have to face the dire fates of various family members while exploring the past; I'm not sure I could cope with feeling guilty about the fact that they were butchers. My ambivalence --nay, blatant hypocrisy -- when it comes to meat eating is a topic for
The Gift of Gab
This is day 15 of the Family History Writing Challenge -- the one where I do a little backtracking, a lot of mea culping, and some not-so-gentle admonishing. The Family Picture Once upon a time, a mysterious picture hung in my mother's apartment in Atlanta. The people pictured in it, those featured at the top of my blog, were identified by my mother on a piece of
Family History Writing Challenge: Ponderings at the Halfway Mark
Today is Day 14 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018 -- which means tomorrow I'll be in the home stretch. Yesterday I hit a brick wall in my research, so today I thought I'd take a breather and consider the process. As I said at the start, I took the challenge because I need deadlines and structure to motivate me to write and because I'm stubborn and
Struggling with Sponsorship: Who’s That Nephew?
This is day 13 of the Family History Writing Challenge and I've hit a brick wall -- to use a common genealogical term for encountering seemingly insurmountable problems that make you want to bang your head against one (this last is just my interpretation). I'm still poring over the emigration questionnaire of Adolf Schweizer: Emigration document Adolf Schweizer In
Adolf or Adolph, Schweizer or Schweitzer: Entering Spelling Hell
This is day 12 or the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018 -- and I'm getting a little slap happy. Let's discuss spelling. When I read over what I posted yesterday about the various butcher shops in the Kornmehl family, I noticed something that annoyed me: I had misspelled my great uncle Rudolph Kornmehl's first name. That is, I used the "ph" spelling at the end of
Emigration Questionnaire Raises More Questions
This is Day 10 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018. The search for Adolph and Bertha Schweitzer continues with the introduction of a document that raises more questions than it answers. One thing you've got to say for the Nazis. They kept good records. In August 1938, the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna (Zentralstelle für jüdische
Jewish Immigration, Part 2: Sponsorship & Family Rifts
This is Day 9 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018. In yesterday's post, I described the restrictions against immigrants, especially Jews, coming to the U.S. from Nazi Austria (an accurate term, I decided, for a country that welcomed Hitler and that was instrumental to putting his Final Solution into place--claims of being occupied notwithstanding). Adolph
Bertha Kornmehl Gets Married, Part 2
This is Day 7 of the Family History Writing Challenge. One week down, three to go, lord help me. As I continue my search for information on my great aunt and uncle, Bertha and Adolf Schweitzer, here's a wrap up of what I've discovered so far. Marriage No. 1 Bertha Kornmehl became Bertha Singer on March 18, 1894; she was divorced from Samuel Singer on December
Samuel Singer’s Military Service
This is Day 6 in the Family History Writing Challenge. I tend to be irreverent in my family history discussions -- both because I tend to be irreverent about everything and if I didn't laugh about certain topics, I would cry. This last was the case with the discussion of Samuel Singer's military service (or potential therefore) in the last post. Other Members of My Family
Bertha Kornmehl Gets Married, Part 1
This is Day Five of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018. I mentioned in my first post of this challenge that I found a clue associated with trying to learn about Bertha Kornmehl and Adolf Schweizer: A listing for my great aunt in Geni.com that showed her with a hyphenated name, Bertha Singer-Schweizer. That puzzle was very easily resolved, as it turned out. I noted
A Great Family Research Tool for Viennese Jews: The IKG Archive
This is Day 4 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018 While spending time behind the scenes trying to interpret the documents about Adolf and Bertha Schweitzer that I recently received, I'd like celebrate the remarkable source of those documents: the archive of the Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde (IKG) Wien. Getting Excited Over Old Documents I worked for several years