Siegmund Jellinek - Biography

Siegmund Alexander Jellinek was born in March 1857 in the small city of Kanitz, in the South Moravian, Czech region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He completed studies in a Rabbinical school in Prague and earned the high honorific title of Oberkantor (chief cantor). He also was well qualified to be a spiritual and prayer leader, life cycle event officiant and teacher of Hebrew and religion. Before WWI, he performed these roles in a large area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire between Vienna and Prague, but which had a thinly and widely dispersed Jewish population. Siegmund also counseled returning WWI veterans as a Seelensorger (pastoral psychological and spiritual counselor/chaplain). In 1919, he received a medal from the Austrian government for this counseling work, which he wore very proudly.

Siegmund’s long-lasting, final post as Oberkantor, spiritual leader, religion teacher, community registrar and officiant at life cycle events, including Mohel (a specially religiously and surgically trained circumciser), was in Oberhollabrunn (aka Hollabrunn), a town near Vienna. Mostly traditional Jews came from Oberhollabrunn and from the surrounding geographic area, to the ‘in-house’ Bethaus (small synagogue which was on one floor of Siegmund’s family’s home) on Jewish holidays, Holy Days and events such as weddings, ritual circumcisions and funerals.

Six months after the Anschluss, in late September 1938, Siegmund, the remaining members of his family and the approximately two hundred other Hollabrunner Jews were forcibly and hastily expelled by the Nazis. Siegmund took the register of the Jewish community with him to Vienna and managed to keep this critical list of identifying information secret from the Nazis for nearly six months. Ultimately, however, Nazi ‘crime’ investigators discovered the registry’s location. On March 7, 1939, a police officer entered Siegmund’s Vienna apartment and demanded the list. Under tremendous duress, Siegmund’s eldest daughter, Gisela, gave the register to the officer.¹

Siegmund sang in a strong and expressive tenor voice. He blew the shofar for the last of many times and gave the last of many moving sermons on Yom Kippur, 1942 in Theresienstadt. This last time he tried to give hope, encouragement, and “strength to survive”² to a large group of fellow prisoners in the courtyard of a former beer brewery inside this concentration camp and way station to Auschwitz. Siegmund, who had been in good health before his deportation from Vienna in August 1942, succumbed to enteritis just a few months after Yom Kippur, in January 1943.

Date	Author(s) / Origin of Letter	Recipient(s) / Relationship to Author(s) / Destination of Letter	Summary
August 8, 1938	Max Jellinek Gisela Jellinek Schlesinger Siegmund Jellinek Berta Schafer Jellinek [Oberhollabrunn, Austria]	Gisella Nadja Jellinek (niece of MJ and GJS, granddaughter of SJ and BSJ) [Rishon Le Zion, British Mandate Palestine]	Gisella Nadja’s Uncle Max and Aunt Gisela write brief, but strong, telling statements, such as “Everyone wants to leave but cannot.” Grandparents Siegmund and Berta wish Gisella Nadja God’s blessing and protection.
August 9, 1938	Anna Jellinek Siegmund Jellinek [Hollabrunn, Austria] Hugo Jellinek [Brünn, Czechoslovakia]	Hugo Jellinek (Anna’s father, Siegmund’s son) Berta Jellinek (Anna’s sister, and Siegmund’s grandaughter) [Brünn, Czechoslovakia] Siegmund Jellinek (Hugo’s father) [Hollabrunn, Austria]	Believing that she has a choice, 14 year-old Anna asks her father whether it is better to immigrate to America or to England. Anna criticizes Gisella Nadja’s idealistic Zionism and Betar activism and wants her to abandon Palestine for America. Siegmund believes that Hugo can and will come back to Hollabrunn and be able to sell boxes of merchandise that he left behind when he fled to Czechoslovakia. In a more realistic vein, Siegmund signs off as “worried” and admits that Gisela has been travelling recently between Stockerau, Vienna and Hollabrunn. However, he omits the dire reasons. Anna perceives zero prospects for future peace in Mandatory Palestine, and also lovingly urges her father to spend more money on himself in order to be better nourished and healthier.
September 5, 1938	Siegmud Jellinek Gisela Jellinek Schlesinger [Hollabrunn, Austria]	Hugo Jellinek (son of SJ, sister of GJS) Berta Jellinek (grandaughter of SJ, niece of GJS) [Brünn, Czechoslovakia]	Siegmund received a document from his son, Hugo, that grants him permission to enter a town (likely, his birthplace of Kanitz) in Czechoslovakia. He hopes to obtain a doctor's certificate that may increase his chances of procuring a permit to exit from Austria. Siegmund also considers a questionable offer of assistance and hopes for the transfer of his pension to Kanitz. Lastly, Siegmund reports on having managed the sale of Hugo's merchandise and that Anna will bring the sale proceeds with her when she reunites with her father, (Hugo) in Brünn. Gisela feels that she is losing her calm, courage, ability to pray and her belief in being rescued. Gisela, her husband and her parents are being expelled from her parents' long-standing home/synagogue in Hollabrunn, and Gisela is in the midst of difficult preparations for their forced move to Vienna. Gisela describes strong emotional reactions by neighbors in the face of their evictions.
August 11, 1939	Siegmund Jellinek Berta Schafer Jellinek [Vienna, Austria]	Karl and Kreindel/Karla E. Jellinek (son/daughter-in-law of SJ and BSJ) [New York City, USA]	Siegmund and Berta are each reassured by news that Karl, his wife and daughter have settled into a new apartment. Siegmund prints the Hebrew letters of the blessing for affixing a mezzuzah and for expressing gratitude for having reached this moment of security. He expresses longing to be together again and hopes that “eventual overriding righteousness” will allow him to “live through these times.” Berta adds her concerns for three of her other children: Max, Siegfried and Anna. She also encourages Karla, who is pregnant, and writes of Siegmund’s and her own good health and of her feeling warmly towards Karla’s mother.
June 1-5, 1941 (Est.)	Berta Schafer Jellinek Gisela Jellinek Schlesinger Leopold Schlesinger Siegmund Jellinek [Vienna, Austria] Hugo Jellinek Fritzi Fränkel [Brünn, Czechoslovakia]	Gisella Nadja Jellinek (granddaughter of BSJ and SJ, niece of GJS and LS, daughter of HJ, stepdaughter of FF) [Rishon Le Zion, British Mandate Palestine]	Sad, final messages from each of the letter writers, including from Gisella Nadja's own father. Each close relative seems to try to reassure him/herself and Gisella Nadja of his/her fate and expresses love and yearning to be together again.