| Born: | 01-03-1920 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Edith BLUMENFELD, born on January 3rd, 1920 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), daughter of Dr. Osias Herschel Blumenfeld (1889-1964, lawyer) and Syssla Blumenfeld, née Landau (1891-1975, owner of the textile shop Blumenfeld & Co), lived in Vienna's 1st district, Wipplingerstrasse 21/12a. In the summer of 1937, she had passed her school-leaving examination (Matura) at the Luithlen private secondary school in Vienna's 1st district, and subsequently began to study in the fall term of 1937/38 at the Philosophical School and took courses in Romance languages and literature Studies, Art History and Chemistry.
Her mother came from the Polish part of the Habsburg monarchy, her father from Galicia [now Ukraine], and both came to Vienna in 1914, where her father studied law at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in law on December 14th, 1918. Shortly thereafter, the two were married in April 1919 at the Tempelgasse synagogue in Vienna, and in January 1920 Edith was born. Her father was admitted to the bar in Vienna in March 1934 and had his own office in Vienna 1, Gonzagagasse 16.
When the National Socialists seized power, the family had to flee Vienna for racist reasons. As early as May 1938, she and her parents applied to the emigration department of the Jewish Religious Community for assistance in emigrating. Edith did not state there her university studies that she had begun as a qualification, but that she was also learning tailoring and glove making in a tailor's academy (her mother was the owner of the lingerie and blouse factory and shop Blumenfeld & Co in Vienna's 1st district, Plankengasse 2). An uncle in New York and a great uncle in Kentucky, USA were one of the options to emigrate with the parents and the younger sister Sylvia (born 1924) either to the USA, Australia or Palestine. The father was no longer allowed to work as a lawyer in Vienna, Edith was expelled from the University of Vienna, but applied for a place at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Eventually, the father and the two children managed to emigrate across the green border to Belgium in August 1938 - the mother remained in Vienna for the time being - and from there on to Palestine [Israel], where they arrived on September 13th, 1938, and initially lived in Jerusalem. There she was also able to resume her university studies. But after a few months she had to abandon her studies in order to support her sister and her father, who was not in good shape and could only earn a small income as a souvenir seller, so Edith Blumenfeld began to work as a secretary and typist to supplement the family income. Later they lived in Tel Aviv and on November 30 they obtained citizenship in the British Mandate of Palestine.
The father later returned to Vienna, worked as a lawyer again in Vienna from February 1950 and also died in Vienna in 1964, as did his wife Zischka Lea Blumenfeld in 1975.
Edith Blumenfeld died on November 6th, 1981 and is buried with her parents in the family grave in the New Jewish Section at the Central Cemetery in Vienna.
She was also remembered in 2010 in the exhibition "Ausgegrenzt, Vertrieben, Ermordet" (January 22nd to May 14th, 2010) at the Department of Art History of the University of Vienna, dedicated to the memory of Edith Blumenfeld and 20 other former students of the University of Vienna focused on art history. There her biography was inadvertently mixed with that of an Edith Blumenfeld of Vienna (1921-2015), who married Vienna born Ernst Prossnitz, later Peer (1914-2008), and emigrated with him to Australia, where they both lived under the name Peer. This coincidental name, place of birth similarity led to this confusion, which could also be read in the memorial book for some time, but was corrected in 2023.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") PHIL 1937–1938; Archive of the Jewish Community of Vienna/marriage records 1919, birth records 1920, emigration records; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 366; SAUER/REITER-ZATLOUKAL 2010, 63, 96; Exhibition "Ausgegrenzt, Vertrieben, Ermordet" 2010; www.genteam.at; www.myheritage.de; www.ancestry.de; information courtesy by Dr. Ruth Contreras, Vienna 02/2023.
Herbert Posch
