Language:
English
Pages:
67 pages :
,
Typed manuscript (copies).
Year of publication:
1995
Keywords:
Liebenthal, Edith (née Friedler)
;
Kindertransports (Rescue operations)
;
Women authors.
;
Vienna (Austria)
;
England Emigration and immigration.
;
United States Emigration and immigration.
;
Austria History Anschluss, 1938.
;
Autobiographies
;
Biographical sources
;
Memoirs
Abstract:
Edith Liebenthal starts her memoir with description of Vienna where she was born. She describes famous buildings, and buildings that were important to her personally. She states that "living in Vienna and attending school there imbued me with a sense of pride, even love, for the city and country of my birth". She discusses art in Austria which she thinks of as the greatest source of pride. Her family had a clear bourgeois background, being involved in Vienna's rich cultural life. The family went on summer vacations, and during winter had skiing vacations in the Alps. Her harmonic childhood but suddenly disrupted by the Anschluss. Her father lost his job and her mother lost her customers. They had no friends in the US to get an affidavit, but a childhood friend of her father's finally guaranteed for them. Edith escaped on a Kindertransport to England, where she stayed with the Kingdon family in Bristol. Her parents managed to get domestic visas in England. Although only staying in England for 15 months, this period of time had the greatest impact on her life, as Ms. Liebenthal notes in her memoir. She writes about her days at school, different eating habits in Britain, the outbreak of the war, and a temporary reunion with her parents. After the outbreak of World War 2, she had to leave Bristol within 3 days, because it was declared an "alien protected area". Still, she could graduate from high school. Then the visas arrived, and after some obstacles they made it to New York on the liner "Cameronia". She found a job immediately, through a girl she had befriended on the ship. During the first weeks she sustained the family financially. However, it was difficult for her to befriend new people. In March 1947, she met Kurt, her future husband. They married one year later. The remaining chapters cover the first years of marriage, her job as social security administrator, her retirement years in Houston, Texas.
Abstract:
The memoir ends with a portrait of the Friedler family and includes a pedigree on the last page.
Note:
Microfilmed on MM III 18.
