I was in Vienna’s Jewish Records Office last week — was it really only last week? — looking to fill in some key bits of my family history. When archivist Irma Wulz showed me the marriage records of my grandparents, Hermann Rosenbaum and Ernestine Kornmehl, I wasn’t especially surprised to learn that the wedding witnesses had been David Schmerling, Ernestine’s brother-in-law and also her first cousin, as well… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: 19 Berggasse
19 Berggasse: A Twice-Famed Address
I’ve mentioned many times that this blog is a cousin magnet. I don’t even have to try to attract relatives; they just gravitate towards the Kornmehl name. This is a wonderful thing, especially when I’ve been too busy to blog and I can entice one of the cousins to write a guest post. A brief… Continue Reading
The Butcher Shop in Freud’s Building: Kosher or Not?
My inspiration for starting this blog was the discovery that my great uncle’s butcher shop occupied a storefront in 19 Berggasse, the same building where Sigmund Freud lived and practiced. According to my mother, Freud’s wife had bought kosher meat from one of my great uncles. I never knew which one, however, until I saw… Continue Reading
A Tale of Two Siggies
This much I know: For more than four decades, Sigmund Freud and my great uncle, Siegmund Kornmehl, rented space in the same building in Vienna, 19 Berggasse. Siegmund Kornmehl had a storefront butcher business, while Sigmund Freud lived and practiced psychoanalysis upstairs. Beyond that, things get fuzzier. Was Martha Freud Really Affronted? I haven’t yet… Continue Reading
Did Freud Eat Kosher?
My mother didn’t talk much about her early life in Vienna, but one of the things she told me was that Sigmund Freud’s wife used to buy kosher meat from one of her uncles. I recently learned the identity of this uncle: It was Siegmund Kornmehl, who had a kosher butcher shop on the ground… Continue Reading
