The Vienna Boy Scout Group

Wednesday was the 84^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, I wanted to bring a bit of light to that dark day. Therefore, I present:

The Vienna Boy Scout Group.

The Vienna Boy Scout Group is what I call the group of Grandpa John’s closest friends whom – as the name implies – became his friends during his time in the Boy Scouts (whether as a kid or a leader, I don’t know) while he was growing up and living in Vienna. At the latest, by March 1938 they were all friends. And they were all Jewish.

And they all survived.

1. Hans Steinhaus/John Howard Stanley (aka Grandpa John)

Hans was born on 21 January 1913 to Jonas Steinhaus and Eleonore Rothenstein in Vienna. He escaped Vienna on 04 August 1938 and lived in Schauffhausen, Switzerland for two years. In August 1940, he booked passage on a ship from Lisbon to New York and from there he made his way to Chicago where his sponsor family lived. On 04 August 1944, he married Margaret “Margie” Weiner and later had four kids. Just under a year after the wedding, he officially changed his name to John Stanley. Over the course of his life, he started off working at the Chicago Printed String Company before moving on to be a chemist and then later on to own and manage a few small businesses. He died in Los Angeles on 28 January 1987 at the age of 74.

2. Hermann/Herman Medak

Hermann was born on 26 April 1914 to Ignatz and Ella Medak in Vienna. From 1932 to 1938, he studied at the University of Vienna School of Medicine. However, the Anschluss came in March 1938, and in 1939 he escaped to England and from there made his way to the U.S. Once he came here, he briefly lived in Toledo, Ohio for a few years before settling down in Chicago. Unfortunately, the U.S. didn’t take his medical school credits so instead he decided to become a dentist (and later on obtained his PhD). He married Vivian Fried (I’m going to talk about him and Vivian briefly in another post) and had four kids, two of whom Jeanne has been in contact with within the last decade. However, the fact that he couldn’t initially get his medical degree in Vienna didn’t stop him. He went back to Vienna in the ‘70s and got his medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1979. He died in Evanston, Illinois on 29 May 1991 at the age of 77. According to Jeanne, Herman was humorous, lots of fun, and a great guy to be around.

3. Karl/Carlos Stein

Carlos was born around 1915 and escaped Vienna around 1938. He settled in Santiago, Chile and kept up a correspondence with Grandpa John until the day Grandpa John died. According to Jeanne, he was a serious kind of man.

4. Eddie Tennent

Eddie was born around 1913 and escaped around 1938. He settled down in Chicago where he married Shelby. Shelby was an artist; the giraffe engraving that hung on the wall in Grandmargie’s living room was by her. Eddie was an ophthalmologist.

5. Ernst/Ernest Sternfeld

Ernst was born 27 June 1913 in Vienna to Lajos Sternfeld and Sidonia Samek. He escaped around 1938. He settled down in Toledo, Ohio (I think he and Herman Medak worked at the same hospital in Toledo for a few years) with his wife Zilla and two kids. According to my grandparents in the ‘80s, Ernest was a “chest surgeon.” He died on 8 March 2004 in Toledo, Ohio when he was 90.

6. Ernst/Ernest Gross

Ernst was born around 1913 and escaped Vienna around 1938. According to my grandparents in the ‘80s, Ernst (now known as Ernest) and his wife Erica “live[d] in London.” According to Jeanne, like Herman, Ernest was a humorous, great guy, and fun to be around.

7. Harold Rosenbaum

He was born around 1913 and escaped around 1938. Unfortunately, I don’t know where he went in the world.

I want to acknowledge that while they all survived, I want to bet that all – or almost all – of them carried trauma probably for the rest of their lives. While I don’t know for any of Grandpa John’s friends, Grandpa John’s life was not without loss: Both of his parents and his sister were murdered in the Holocaust.

Odds and Ends: Embroidered Items

 The other day I went through the boxes a bit more and I found some embroidered items. They include:

 

1. A wallet:

2. A foundation container. When you open it, it still has the smell of makeup:

3. A makeup compact and wallet:

4. Another potential makeup compact:

(I’m not showing a picture of the inside because there is nothing left in it except residue.)

 

Where did these come from? And why does the inside of the wallet say Made in Austria in English? Did it come from the modern region of Austria or did it come from the Austro-Hungarian Empire?

In terms of the latter, I know neither why it says Made in Austria in English nor exactly which Austria it comes from. As for where they come from though…

 

According to Aunt Jeanne, all of these embroidered items reminded her of the piano bench cushion at Grandmargie’s house:

 

They look similar, right? As you can see, they both have a floral design. Jeanne says that she thinks that these embroidered items were inherited from her (Great-) Aunt Zdenka.

 

Who’s Aunt Zdenka? Aunt Zdenka was the wife of Adolph Pick. He was the half-brother of Grandmargie’s mother, Martha (Pick) Weiner. Zdenka immigrated to America in 1926.

 

Considering the fact that the two chairs and small table in the entrance hall as well as the loveseat in the living room of Grandmargie’s house were inherited from Adolph and Zdenka Pick’s house, it is plausible to believe that the above embroidered items were too. Unfortunately, I don’t have any conclusive evidence yet but hopefully I will find some in the near future.