The name CALMAN pops up in my line and I don't know if it is a transcription
error. Coleman DEFRIES, a prominent English manufacturer, is found on 1841
Census with his own name transcribed COLMAN, and apparent grandparents'
(Jane and Samuel - his mother was Esther COLEMAN) transcribed CALMAN. These
were Dutch Jews, although perhaps the Coleman/Calman branch originated
elsewhere, but so far I have not traced them.

Ann Jensen
Australia

Dear list,

as probably most of you know, for quite some time now the Prager
Tagblatt as well as other Austrian Newspapers are online searchable
through the Oeterriechische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB). Every month more
and more editions are added and can be searched online.

http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?apm=0&aid=ptb&zoom=2

So far I have been able to find obits for many people >from my family
tree.

Yesterdy I saw that the year 1913 is also online now. A year I had been
wating for because it is the year my gggrandmother (Berta Lang nee Pohl)
died and I hoped to find her obituary. I know her date of death >from her
gravestone, March 13, 1913.

I looked through several days following this date to find an obit for
her or at least a notice about her death under "Familiennachrichten"
but without success.

Now I start wondering whether there is another paper she might be in or
is the date of death given on her tombstone probablynot correct?

Any sugestion would help me.

Thanks
Peter Zimmer, Muenster, Germany

One of my relatives, Sidonie SINGER nee MOSCHKOWITZ
moved >from Vienna to Prague to be with her son Julius
SINGER. Julius SINGER was a professor of art in
Prague. This probably means at a Gymnasium, not the
university, but I'm not sure. He became somewhat known
as a designer of Ex Libris, and a couple of years back
a fair number of them were up for auction on various
internet auction sites, but the source seems to have
dried up.

Anyway, an heirs list >from Vienna said that in 1910,
Sidonie SINGER was living at Hussgasse 10 in Prague.
Does anyone have access to Prague directories, who
could look her up for me, so I can estimate a date of
death to search for an obituary in the Austrian online
newspaper archive?

Sidonie MOSCHKOWITZ was born in Bielitz (now
Bielsko-Biala) about 1858. Her mother's family, the
HONIGMANNs, were >from Kempen, now Kepno, Poland;
that's my connection to the family.

Thanks in advance!
Irene Newhouse
Kihei HI

With reference to Judith Romney Wegner's posting on the statue at Liverpool
Street, London you can see some pictures here - enter *Kinder* into the search
field and you will find it: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/6b28f/4b7ec/9/

Last year I took a tour around Clarence House - the official residence of
Prince Charles and previously the home of his grandmother. It is an intimate
family home, with a few meaningful family photographs dotted around on tables,
desks and the piano.

Very prominently displayed on one small table amongst the family photos is a
commemorative "object" - I cannot remember if it was a globe, and of course on
cannot take pictures - relating to the children who came to Britain on the
Kindertransport. It had an inscription on it >from the Kindertransport
Association.

I found this link on the Film "Into the Arms of Strangers" where you will see
Prince Charles was present at the Premiere. The event obviously moved him
greatly: http://michaeldvd.com/Reviews/Reviews.asp?ID=1411

Here is another article relating to the film premiere. A photograph of two boys
looking out of a train window was the key to a reunion many years later.

Celia Male [U.K.]

Hello all together,

my name is Bernd Krause, and I am researching the RAMSPOTT family; see
www.ramspott.com. This is no Jewish family, but maybe there are
connections to Jewish families. So this is my question:
Did anyone ever hear about that name? Are there any connections?
Hints of every kind are welcome.
You may also get in contact with my via mail to: bgeschichte@...

Thank you and greetings >from Germany

Bernd Krause

Subject: Kalman
From: Lilot Moorman (lilot@...)

Regarding the surname KALMAN: This discussion may help solve a nearly
century old mystery in my family: the identity of my grandfather. My
grandmother, Nella LUSTIG, married a man named KALMAN in Bratislava
(then Hungary) in 1907-1908. She divorced him immediately after the
birth of their daughter in 1909, and he was never heard >from again. I
would be interested in hearing >from anyone who knows of a KALMAN
family >from Bratislava.

Thanks,

Lilot Moorman
lilot@...

Dear Peter and others with an interest in Vienna obituaries,

I had success finding obituaries for Jewish relatives in the Neue Freie
Press. It is available at the Oesterreichisches Nationalbibliothek (OeNB) in
Vienna but I have not seen an online version yet.

Carole Garbuny Vogel
Lexington, Massachusetts

I have been looking at the online newspapers at
http://anno.onb.ac.at/anno.htm

My German is limited, and I have not had any luck finding any
obituaries. Are any of the papers available at that site (or elsewhere
on the web) likely to have obituaries for Jews? If so, which ones?

I see that our Beginner's Guide to Austrian-Jewish Genealogy mentions
the Neues Wiener Tageblatt and the Neue Freie Presse as common sources
of death notices. I haven't found these exact titles, and similar
titles have not yielded good results.

Thanks,
Bob Lenk
Greeley, Colorado, USA

I am in the process of compiling data on the descendants of Baron Leopold POPPER von
PODHRAGY (1821-1886). He was a native of Hlinik, Trencin Co., Hungary, but later moved
to Vienna where he and his family were prominent members of the imperial court. Leopold
was a first cousin of my great-great-great-grandmother, hence my interest in him and his
family. I have been able to successfully track most of the descendants of his three sons, Baron
Alexander, Baron Armin, and Baron Berthold, but have been less successful in following the
children and descendants of his five daughters. The daughters were: (a) Adele POPPER v.
PODHRAGY (1843-1912) [m. 1863, Dr.-Jur. Ferdinand LOEWENSTEIN]; (b) Cacilie POPPER v.
PODHRAGY (1846-1916]) [m. 1869, Heinrich GOLDBERGER v. BUDA]; (c) Jeanette POPPER v.
PODHRAGY (1850-1917) [m. 1871, Adolf SCHENK v. LEDICZ]; (d) Adolfine Amalie Eveline
Maria POPPER v. PODHRAGY (1851-1917) [m. 1877, Baron Robert BIEDERMANN v. TURONY];
and (e) Emmy [Esther] POPPER v. PODHRAGY (1856-1936) [m. 1877, David Simon CAHN-SPEYER].

If anyone can provide me with any information on the offspring and descendants of these POPPER
daughters, it would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Robert Hanscom
Andover, Massachusetts USA

Researching: TAUBER, KOHN-ZERKOWITZ, KNOPFELMACHER, ZWILLINGER, BRULL, LAZAR,
POPPER v. PODHRAGY

I have an idea for a project that I can't launch or manage but might appeal
to others in this SIG. Why don't we pool our resources and hire someone in
Austria to research and make digitized images of the obituaries in the Neues
Wiener Tageblatt and the Neue Freie Presse that are available at the
Oesterreichisches Nationalbibliothek (OeNB)? The same person or someone else
could then make an index with links to the images and post them on the SIG
website.

Obituaries are treasure troves - they give names of the deceased, where they
lived, their occupations, cause of death, names of spouse, children,
siblings, in-laws, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, sometimes with the towns
where these people live, and more.

Occasionally there are unexpected surprises. My uncle told me of the shock
he received as a young man when his mother showed him the obituary for his
grandmother. Only then did he learn that his grandmother had been adopted.
All the people whom he thought of as great-aunts and great-uncles were not
blood relatives. And he learned his grandmother's true maiden name.

Other SIGS within JewishGen have successfully launched similar projects so
we could copy one of their models.

Carole Garbuny Vogel
Lexington, Massachusetts

I would like to point you to this new asset register - it apparently lists
assets bought in Eretz Israel by people abroad prior to WWII. These assets
have never been claimed and most are thought to be owned by people who were
murdered in the Holocaust. The database of 60,000 names lists bank deposits and
property: http://www.hashava.org.il/eng/

Enter for example Kolin in the box labelled *city* and you will find;

BENTLER Heinrich; MANDELIK Bernh.; RUDOLF Leopold;

Here are others I have screened:

*Bene*: picks up place name apparently in Czechoslovakia "Benesocesko":
CIKERMAN Jacob Ber

Boskowitz: five name inc. five BASCH

*Brod*; brings up seven names

*Eis*: brings up Brundeis [spelling error] an Elbe: WEINER Mirjam

*Eisen*: picks up two names

Gablonz: seven names inc. four URABIN

*Grad*: picks up Belgrade which is placed in Czechoslovakia! The Sephardic
FARCHY name appears and I know that there are Belgrade FARCHY buried in Vienna.

Jungwoschifitz; two names

Karlsbad; 16 names

Konigstadl: FANTL Gustav

Melnik: FISCHER Irene

Nachod; nine names including FANTA; three PICK, etc etc

*Nik*; picks up noone >from Nikolsburg but FISCHER Irene >from Melnik!

*Ostra*: picks up: BEER Max Dr; STRASMANN Ernst; GRONNER Ferdinand

Pardubitz; seven inc 5 BERGMANN

Pilsen: BECK Gustav; ECKSTEIN Moritz; HELLER Anton; IMMERGUT Max; KOHN Hugo;
KOHN Moritz; NEUMANN Leopold; POSGES [probably PORGES?] Karl; ZENTNER Julius;

Prossnitz: Johanna POLLAK; Siegfried POLLAK; Max WEXBERG; Gustav ZWEIG

Tachov: KUGLER Josef

*Wei* picks up Weinberge? in Czech/Austria: PICK Moritz

Znaim: two names: FRIEDMANN Sam; ROSENFELD S
Larger cities:
Brunn: 19 names;
Prague: 67 names
Teplitz: 78 names
Vienna: 187 names including Theodor HERZL
Graz: seven names
Linz: three names

I need to cross-check to see if the majority of names are holocaust victims and

we all need to look hard at this list for links and clues, especially as there
are likely to be errors in the place names - see *Eis* above!

Celia Male [U.K.]

Wonderful idea... any idea of how much such a project would cost? We have
959 members, so if each person sent $5.00 earmarked for that project....

Barbara Mannlein

Before we all get carried away with this project, I would like to point out
that there are literally thousands of Partezettel [obituary notices listing
date of death, funeral and hopefully the related family members] at the Adler
Gesellschaft, Vienna. Of course one has to go to Vienna to see them, but they
have already been extracted and filed:

http://www.adler-wien.at/wDeutsch/index.shtml

I have copied many of those relevant to my family. Poorer people generally did
not have these Partezettel.

Dr. Bloch's Osterreichische Wochenschrift, which I have referred to before [to
be found on Compact memory: http://www.compactmemory.de/ ] often has obituaries
of prominent Jews in the Habsburg Empire especially >from Vienna associated with
the Jewish community. Just go to the week or so after the death and you may
find one. They are not like today's obituaries, which catalogue family details
and activities - but they concentrate on the good qualities and worthy deeds of
the deceased person. I have a lengthy obituary of my gtgt grandfather Emanuel
BIACH; his wife 11 children are not mentioned at all. Thus they tend to be
useless for genealogical purposes.

Pressburg papers would be particularly useful to screen as it is almost
impossible to get early data >from Bratislava. The same applies to regional
papers in Bohemia and Moravia. I know nothing about these and where they are
archived. We would probably be wasting our money in Vienna - reinventing the
wheel!

Celia Male [U.K.]

Celia Male has pointed out that there is a collection of obituaries that
already exists in Vienna. This would make our project even easier. Perhaps
we can get permission to digitize and index this collection and put it
online. There is of course the question of how complete the collection is.

Carole Garbuny Vogel
Lexington, Massachusetts

The website of the National Library of Austria which contains
digitized versions of many Viennese papers unfortunately does not
include the Neue Freie Presse and the Wiener Tagblatt. These two
papers would probably contain the majority of Jewish obituaries. When
I visited Vienna, around 1990, I was invited by a member of the
Austrian Genealogical Society Der Adler to visit their premises. There
I noticed several roooms that are stacked >from floor to ceiling with
cutouts of obituaries >from Viennese papers. They are organized
alphabetically and apparently one of their members collected them for
many years. I asked at the time if they had obituaries on any WELLISCH
and as a personal favour I received copies of approximately 10
obituaries. They span the period >from 1922 to 1934. >from the cutouts I
was only able to identify only the Deutsch Oesterreichische
Tages-Zeitung. If I remember correctly, I was told at the time that
this collection spans about 30 or 40 years. Among the obituaries in my
collection is one of my great uncle Dr. Samuel WELLISCH, Advokat, who
passed away in 1925 in Pressburg and was buried there. However the
obtiuary appeared in a Viennes paper.
Obviously it would be an excellent idea to convert this treasure into
a database. However one should remember that the Viennese papers have
obituaries on Christians and Jews, and to identify Jews would only be
possible if the cemetery (1. or 4. Tor in the Zentralfriedhof) is
mentioned. This is not always the case.
Henry Wellisch
Toronto

I like the idea of paying someone to do a specific task like this. I think
language is a big barrier to many of us. Regardless of how many languages we
may read, write or speak, it never seems to be enough...>from where I am
accessing existing records is quite tough.

Ann Jensen
out west NSW OZ

Dear austria/czech sig members:

My husband Peter WEGNER and I are now researching the families of his parents.
His mother Hermine ("Mimi") WEGNER, born in Vienna in 1909, was the
daughter of Juda ("Julius") WEGNER, who was born 1863 in DROHOBYCH.
Hermine WEGNER's husband, Leib ("Leo") WEIDEN, was born in TARNOW in
1903, the son of Izak-Eisig WEIDEN and Liebe Hendel SCHRANK.

If any one is researching these family names, please get in touch with
us. So far as we can ascertain, most WEGNERS and WEIDENS who did not
escape before the war were lost in the Holocaust. We would be happy to
hear >from anyone with either of those family names.

Judith Romney Wegner
jrw@...
Peter Wegner
peter_wegner@...

Researching WEGNER, WEIDEN, KESSLER, SCHRANK (>from DROHOBYCH, TARNOW,
and CZERNOWITZ).

Henry Wellisch wrote:
However one should remember that the Viennese papers have
obituaries on Christians and Jews, and to identify Jews would only be
possible if the cemetery (1. or 4. Tor in the Zentralfriedhof) is
mentioned. This is not always the case.


On the Christian obituaries in this time was mostly a crucifix picture. In
addition everybody (also Christian people) know the typical family names of
Austrian (Czech, Hungarian and Galician including) Jews. If the editor will
be uncertainty than can he the family name in the IKG cemetery database
query.

Regards
Hanus Grab

I have made a very approximate cost estimate for this project as follows: Die
Neue Freie Presse was founded in 1864 and ceased publication in 1938 - ie 74
years. That makes a total of about 4,000 weeks. Assuming it takes one hour to
screen a week and record the data [and that is a very optimistic estimate] - we
now require about 4,000 hours to scan all the editions. The minimum wage in the
UK, for an unskilled labourer is currently 5.35 GBP/hour - ie the most basic
cost for this work would be 21,000 GBP. We have to add transport and overheads
for at least a year and then the costs of the digitisation and indexing. As we
would be using a skilled person, the cost will probably double to 40,000 GBP,
ie 80,000 dollars. As I have never been to the Osterreichische
Nationalbibliothek in Vienna to screen newspapers, this estimate is tentative.
I have no idea how many obituaries we would find in total, but the cost per
obituary will inevitably be very high.

In the meantime, I have written to ANNO* as follows: "Have you any plans to
digitise *Die Neue Freie Presse* in the near future? I am also interested in
Pressburg newspapers. What hope is there in this area?"

As soon as I receive a reply, I will let you know.

As for selecting obituaries for Zentralfriedhof Tor 1 and Tor IV only, I should
add that many Jewish burials took place in Doblingerfriedhof and in the 1900s
in the Feuerhalle, Simmering [crematorium]. Before Wahringerfriedhof closed in
about 1878, we must not forget this cemetery, which overlapped the early years
of Die Neue Freie Presse. And there are other cemeteries too, inc.
Baden-bei-Wien, Klosterneuburg, Floridsdorf etc. In addition, completely to
ignore converted Jews, will inevitably result in genealogical gaps.
That is why I said we could never use someone with no experience, who is on a
basic wage!

I noted the comment of Ann Jensen that she does not understand German;
fortunately there are only a few words which appear on these Partezettel
constantly - they are mainly associated with family relationships. All our
Austria-Czech members, would have no trouble at all after an hour or so of
practice. We definitely do not need to translate them individually. That would
make costs soar even higher.

Celia Male [U.K.]

*ANNO: http://anno.onb.ac.at/

I received a couple of messages where it was suggested that it would
be good idea to establish a database. I think that this would be
quite impracticable, since it would involve very high costs. Just the
two most important Viennese papers were published between the 1860s
and the Anschluss, and during this period there would probably have
appeared thousands of Christian and Jewish obituaries. I think even a
specialist would not be able to separate one >from the other, unless
there is a clear indication, such as the cemetery. I did check some of
the Austrian papers and not all Christian obituaries have a cross.
Regarding "Jewish" names, what about WEISS, SCHWARTZ, SCHUSTER,
SCHNEIDER etc.?
I would however suggest that the management of this group contact the
Austrian genealogical society and find out what exactly they have, and
whether it would be possible to get copies of obituaries >from their
collection on an individual basis and what the cost would be.
I also understand that one our most active participants has tried to
find out if the Austrian National Library intends to place additional
papers on their website.
Henry Wellisch
Toronto