Leonore Schafer

ca. 1910 - 1975

Leonore (aka Lenschi) Schafer was the daughter of Siegfried Schafer, who was one of two brothers of Berta Schafer Jellinek. Siegfried S. was born in Gewitsch, Czechoslovakia in November 1866. Siegfried Schafer, Charlotte Schafer (Siegfried's wife and Leonore's mother), and Leonore were deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt in early September 1942. After a long search, Leonore located Siegmund Jellinek in Thereseinstadt. This enabled Siegfried and Siegmund, who were fond of each other, to be comforted by each other’s company in Theresienstadt and to share hopes and dreams of freedom and reunion with their families.

But these hopes and dreams were not to be realized by either man. Siegfried was already deathly ill when he was forced onto a transport to Auschwitz in August 1944. He and Siegmund are listed in the "Totenbuch Theresienstadt I. Deportierte aus Österreich" [Book of the Dead Theresienstadt I. Deported from Austria]. Leonore and Charlotte managed to survive Theresienstadt and return to live in Vienna after the war. Leonore’s October 1952 letter to her first cousin, Anna Jellinek Nadel, provides a powerful and significant source of corroboration and information about her fate, as well as that of many Jellinek family members.

At this time, one can only get an inkling of the appearance of Leonore’s parents by looking in the doorway, in the back of the 1933 extended Jellinek family group photo in the Images section of this website. Leonore had a kind, round face, dark hair and a short, stocky build. However, she showed fearfulness, rather than her earlier nerve and courage, in the [still strongly anti-semitic] Vienna of the early 1970s, when this writer visited her.

 

Letter Index for Leonore Schafer

 

Date
Author(s) / Origin of Letter
Recipient(s) / Relationship to Author(s) / Destination of Letter

Summary

Leonore Schafer
Charlotte Schafer
                              [Vienna, Austria]
Anna Jellinek Nadel (first cousin of LS, niece of CS)
                                [Sydney, Australia]
Much appreciation for Anna and Miron’s check and letter. Requests confirmation of Siegfried Jellinek’s survival. This update, after 13 years of no contact, includes information re: her own and her parents’ imprisonment in Theresienstadt; the tragic fate of Anna’s parents, Siegmund and Berta, Anna’s brother Hugo, sister-in-law Fritzi, and nieces Berta and Anna, as well as the disappointment, difficulties and poverty in Charlotte and Leonore’s post-war life in Vienna, graves/ashes...and more.

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