The family of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, lived in Austria and Germany until the 1930s before emigrating to England, Canada and the United States. Several of Professor Freud's descendants have become well known in different fields.
Contents |
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the famous psychoanalyst, was born to Jewish Galician parents in the Moravian town of Příbor (German: Freiberg), which was then in the Austrian Empire, now in the Czech Republic.[1] He was the eldest child of Jacob Freud (1815–1896),[2] a wool merchant, and his third wife Amalia Freud, née Nathansohn (1835–1930). Jacob Freud had two children from his first marriage to Sylvia Freud, née Kanner (1829―1852):
Jacob's second marriage (1852―1855) to Rebecca Freud was childless. With Amalia he had 8 children:[3]
Julius Freud died in infancy. Anna married Ely Bernays (1860–1921), the brother of Sigmund's wife Martha. There were four daughters: Judith (b.1885), Lucy (b.1886), Hella (b.1893), Martha (b.1894). The family moved to the United States in 1892 where their one son Edward (1891–1995) became a major influence in modern public relations.
Rosa (Regina Deborah Graf-Freud) married a doctor, Heinrich Graf (1852–1908). Their son, Hermann (b.1897) was killed in the First World War; their daughter, Cacilie (b.1899) committed suicide after an unhappy love affair.
Mitzi (Maria Moritz-Freud) married her cousin Moritz Freud (1857–1922). There were three daughters: Margarethe (b.1887), Lily (b.1888), Martha (b.1892) and one son, Theodor (b.1904) who died in a drowning accident aged 22. Lily became an actress and in 1917 married the actor Arnold Marlé.[4]
Dolfi (Esther Adolfine Freud) did not marry and remained in the family home to care for her parents.
Pauli (Pauline Regine Winternitz-Freud) married Valentine Winternitz (1859–1900) and emigrated to the United States where their daughter Rose Beatrice was born in 1896. After the death of her husband she and her daughter returned to Europe.[5]
Alexander Freud married Sophie Sabine Schreiber (b.1878). Their son, Harry, born in 1909, emigrated to the United States and died in 1968.[6]
Both Freud’s half-brothers emigrated to Manchester, England shortly before the rest of the Freud family moved from Leipzig to Vienna in 1860. Freud’s visit to them in 1875 was his only visit to England prior to his permanent exile in 1938.
Emanuel and Marie Freud (1836-1923) married in Freiberg where their first two children were born: John (b.1856, disappeared pre-1919), the inseparable playmate of Freud’s early childhood;[7]and Pauline(1855-1944). Two children were born in Manchester: Bertha (1866-1940) and Samuel (1870-1945). Freud kept in touch with his British relatives through a regular correspondence with Samuel. They would eventually meet for the first time in London in 1938. [8]
Philipp Freud married Bloomah Frankel (b.1845 Birmingham d.1925 Manchester). There were two children: Pauline (1873-1951) who married Fred Hartwig (1881-1958); and Morris (b.1875 Manchester d.1938 Port Elizabeth, South Africa).
The systematic persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany had a profound effect on the family. Freud's four youngest sisters all died in concentration camps: Regina in Auschwitz, Maria and Pauline in Treblinka, and Esther in Theresienstadt.[9] Freud's brother, Alexander, escaped to Switzerland shortly before the Anschluss and subsequently emigrated to Canada. Freud's sons Oliver and Ernst Ludwig, who had lived in Berlin, fled to France and London respectively in 1933 after Hitler came to power in Germany. Freud and his remaining family left Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938 after Ernest Jones, the then President of the International Psychoanalytic Association, secured immigration permits for them to move to Britain. Permits were also secured for Freud’s housekeeper and maid, his doctor, Max Schur and his family, as well as a number of Freud's colleagues and their families. Freud's grandson, Ernst Halberstadt, was the first to leave Vienna, initially for Paris, before going on to London where he would adopt the name Ernest Freud and train as a psychoanalyst. He was followed to Paris by Martin Freud’s wife, son and daughter. Mother and daughter remained in France and subsequently emigrated to the United States, whilst their son joined his father in London. Freud’s sister-in-law, Minna Bernays, was the first to leave for London early in May 1938. She was followed by his son, Martin, on the 14th May and then his daughter Mathilde and her husband, Robert Hollitscher, on the 24th May. Freud, his wife and daughter, Anna, left Vienna on the 4th of June, accompanied by their household staff and a doctor. Their arrival at Victoria Station, London on the 6th of June attracted widespread press coverage.[10]. Freud’s Vienna consulting room was replicated in exact detail in the new family home, 20 Marsefield Gardens in Hampstead, North London.
Two Freuds were to return to Austria as members of the allied forces. Martin Freud’s son Walter was parachuted behind enemy lines in April 1945. Advised to change his name in case of capture, he refused declaring “I want the Germans to know a Freud is coming back”. He narrowly survived separation from his comrades and single-handedly secured the surrender of the strategically important Zeltweg aerodrome in southern Austria.[11] Alexander Freud’s son Harry (1909-1968) returned to post-war Vienna as a US army officer to investigate the fate of his aunts and to bring before the courts Anton Sauerwald, the Nazi appointed official who took control of Freud’s assets and those of the International Psychoanalytic Association.[12]
Sigmund Freud married Martha Bernays (1861–1951) in 1886. Martha was the granddaughter of Isaac Bernays, a Chief Rabbi in Hamburg. Her sister, Minna Bernays (1865-1941), became a permanent member of the Freud household after the death of her fiancé in 1895. Sigmund and Martha had 6 children: