8/ ?/1941
A Good Friend of Bulgaria
A Good Friend of Bulgaria
Obituary for I. Steinhardt
I do not speak Bulgarian. I speak Russian so this translation may not be completely accurate; it is based on my knowledge of Russian. I would love someone to help me translate it.
On the 8th of this month in Prague the famous Czech journalist I. Steinhardt passed away. He was born in Pol Moravsko in 1873.
I Steinhardt completed his education in journalism in Prague and Vienna. Around 1890 I. Steinhardt went to Sophia where he became the editor of the German language paper Bulgarski Trgovski Vestnik (Bulgarian Evening Trader) where he gained a reputation as an excellent journalist and cultural figure.
He made a particularly strong impression with his brilliant reviews of the National Theatre. His articles in the Bulgarian Evening Trader on national and cultural questions were widely read.
As the correspondent of the English Daily Mail and the Viennese De Zeit, I Steinhardt discoursed on the Bulgarian question to different people in the world perceptively and with deep understanding.
I. Steinhardt lived in Bulgaria for approximately 10 years. Following his work in our country he then became an editor of the Bosnian Post and the Neue Freie Presse. There he was well known for his articles on Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Question, and closely associated with Bulgarian matters. – Isidor Steinhard should always inspired respect and good will towards Bulgaria, and reported on it with obvious sympathy
I. Steinhardt deserves the goodwill and respect of every Bulgarian in Vienna in return for the care he took when reporting on Bulgaria and in response to the careful consideration he gave to the Bulgarian Question.
May he Rest in Peace
I translated this from the Bulgarian. Though I only speak Russian. If anyone who speaks Bulgarian has any comments to make on my translation go ahead.
Remembering Isidor and Regina
It's hard to explain just what this means, but I will.
On this blog I have discussed the life of my grandfather Isidor Steinhardt. Let me put this into context. The Neue Freie Presse was probably the most prestigious newspaper in Europe. Herzl, the founder of Zionism worked as the literary editor of the Neue Freie Presse. My great grandfather became the foreign editor of the paper because he was a very good writer. He wrote in extraordinarily elegant German. He was a product of the Viennese Gymnasia.
He was considered a reactionary in our family and we would mention him in embarrassment in family discussions because he was loyal to the Austrian empire, but his reaction was progressive in its day. The emperor was the tolerant head of a multi-cultural empire and a bulwark against anti-semitism. His son Artur fought in the Jewish regiment out of loyalty to this cosmopolitan empire when he was only a teenager.
Isidor was instrumental in the Austrian annexation of Bosnia. He and Ernst Mandl worked with Count Aerenthal to find an excuse for the annexation of Bosnia. At the same time, as it is in evidence in the obituary above, Isidor was a friend of Bulgaria. The independence of Bulgaria was declared a few days after the annexation of Bosnia and it was no coincidence. My great grandfather was the expert on Bulgarian affairs in the Austrian Empire. His son, Arthur Steinhardt, also became known as an expert on Bulgarian affairs.
There is plenty of proof that Isidor was involved in the annexation of Bosnia, but there is no proof that he was involved in the timing of the declaration of Bulgarian independence. Clearly he was. It will become clearer as time passes.
Isidor also became the expert on Serbian affairs, and I am sorry to say that he was an arch enemy of Serbian expansionist ambitions. In helping to orchestrate the annexation of Bosnia isidor helped Count Aerenthal block Serbia's outlet to the sea. The intention of Serbia was to create a greater Serbia and appeal over the heads of the King of Montenegro and unify Serbia with Montenegro. The annexation of Bosnia put a stop to this. In doing so Isidor helped frustrate the British design to support the creation of a nation called Yugoslavia. In return he received personal approbium from the British representatives in Bosnia and Serbia who reported negatively on Steinhardt in insulting and anti-semitic terms to Lord Gray the British foreign minister which I will not dignify with a mention.
Learning what happened required a lot of research and reading a number of out of print books, piecing together fragments of family history and asking friends to translate passages of text for me.
Suffice it to say that in 1938 my great grandparents and their family were forced to leave Vienna and return to Czechoslovakia. To live destitute in the Prague ghetto. In 1938 my grandfather, married to a German woman, Lisa my grandmother, dropped everything and went to see his parents in Prague doing what he could for them. My great grandfather had managed to save a few items but one that was of particular importance to him was his gold plated Doxa watch, probably manufactured in Italy, but the factory where it was produced was destroyed in the war.
Now this watch was the present of the King of Montenegro to my Grandfather. One day, highly emotional, in Munich in 1972 , my grandfatehr took out this gold watch and said, one day my boys, one day, if you are very good, if you are not bad, one of you will get this gold watch that used to belong to my father. I understand why he said that. What he couldn't say. His guilt. A bad son leaving his father to die in the Ghetto. He wept. Of course we didn't understand because I was 12 and my brothers were 10.
Well I was the lucky boy who got the watch in its soft black leather pouch and I wondered about it, but before I could find out about it it was stolen by two employees of DirectTV in Mexico City. They stole it, and my wifes river pearls, while I went to make tea for them. I wish them the very worst of luck.
But the value of that watch, as valuable an object as it might have been, was really in the story of my grandfather. And so I have been the grandson and great grandson who has been able to, without too much pain, because I am more removed than my mother or Grandfather from what happened, to tell the story.
I was that lucky boy. I got the watch that was in Grandpa's pocket as he came back from Prague tortured by worry.
The annexation of Bosnia was one of the causes of the First World War and my grandfather, based in Sarajevo, Foreign editor of the Neue Freie Presse is in the picture of the Archduke Ferdinand just before he was assasinated. He is standing on the steps. I have two photos of his he preserved from the occasion. They are not from the Internet. They must be historic documents.
He died in extreme poverty in the ghetto of throat cancer untreated. He left his wife Regina to fend for herself. Regina was rounded up and sent to Terezin. Theresenstadt. I have described how this happened. My uncle was there and witnessed it.
I understand that the murder of 6 million people, more will affect countless millions. That the history of the war and persecution affects the lives of the whole of Europe and that WW2 is both a personal and world tragedy. But today I was listening to the History of World in a Hundred objects, the final object and the one that stands out and it was a picture painted by a Jewish artist in Teresenstadt, in Terezin. Where my great grandmother was before she was sent on to die in Treblinka. Again I have discussed this and documented it.
I read and looked into Terezin and what it was. I contacted the head of the Jewish Museum in Prague. I bought old out of print books about the Jewish Ghetto and its life and culture and read memoirs of survivors and found the paintings of Bedrich Fritta in one of the books published by the Jewish Museum. It tears at your heart. A series of pictures drawn by an artist for their little son and hidden behind bricks in a Terezin and in one of the pictures it tells his son: This is not a dream, and it shows pictures of flowers and meadows and a strong son. Both the painter and his wife died, the wife died of starvation. She is short and has large glasses in the picture.
And so, friends. It struck me that though all our families suffered, probably, during WW1 and 2, by family history seems to bracket it.
Isidor Steinhardt was erased from history by the Nazis and he had no obituary in any European newspaper because he was a Jew. But in 1941 a Bulgrian newspaper, in recognition perhaps of his services to Bulgaria published his obituary despite the fact that he was turned by the Nazis into an obscure old man in the Prague Ghetto.
The writing on the side Papa Steinhardt, is that of my Great Grandmother who perished in Treblinka. Her daughter my Great Aunt Else died in Auschwitz, I have written about this elsewhere.
I would like to honour the memory of our great grandfather and great grandmother. My brothers Andy Hall and Chris Hall join me in this as do the whole Hall family. Of course I do so in the name of my mother Eve Hall and my Father Tony Hall and Lisa and Richard and Arthur Steinhardt. I have been expressly deputised by all of them to do so at one point or another.You will find quite a few pictures of them on this blog.
Phil Hall
I translated this from the Bulgarian. Though I only speak Russian. If anyone who speaks Bulgarian has any comments to make on my translation go ahead.
Remembering Isidor and Regina
It's hard to explain just what this means, but I will.
On this blog I have discussed the life of my grandfather Isidor Steinhardt. Let me put this into context. The Neue Freie Presse was probably the most prestigious newspaper in Europe. Herzl, the founder of Zionism worked as the literary editor of the Neue Freie Presse. My great grandfather became the foreign editor of the paper because he was a very good writer. He wrote in extraordinarily elegant German. He was a product of the Viennese Gymnasia.
He was considered a reactionary in our family and we would mention him in embarrassment in family discussions because he was loyal to the Austrian empire, but his reaction was progressive in its day. The emperor was the tolerant head of a multi-cultural empire and a bulwark against anti-semitism. His son Artur fought in the Jewish regiment out of loyalty to this cosmopolitan empire when he was only a teenager.
Isidor was instrumental in the Austrian annexation of Bosnia. He and Ernst Mandl worked with Count Aerenthal to find an excuse for the annexation of Bosnia. At the same time, as it is in evidence in the obituary above, Isidor was a friend of Bulgaria. The independence of Bulgaria was declared a few days after the annexation of Bosnia and it was no coincidence. My great grandfather was the expert on Bulgarian affairs in the Austrian Empire. His son, Arthur Steinhardt, also became known as an expert on Bulgarian affairs.
There is plenty of proof that Isidor was involved in the annexation of Bosnia, but there is no proof that he was involved in the timing of the declaration of Bulgarian independence. Clearly he was. It will become clearer as time passes.
Isidor also became the expert on Serbian affairs, and I am sorry to say that he was an arch enemy of Serbian expansionist ambitions. In helping to orchestrate the annexation of Bosnia isidor helped Count Aerenthal block Serbia's outlet to the sea. The intention of Serbia was to create a greater Serbia and appeal over the heads of the King of Montenegro and unify Serbia with Montenegro. The annexation of Bosnia put a stop to this. In doing so Isidor helped frustrate the British design to support the creation of a nation called Yugoslavia. In return he received personal approbium from the British representatives in Bosnia and Serbia who reported negatively on Steinhardt in insulting and anti-semitic terms to Lord Gray the British foreign minister which I will not dignify with a mention.
Learning what happened required a lot of research and reading a number of out of print books, piecing together fragments of family history and asking friends to translate passages of text for me.
Suffice it to say that in 1938 my great grandparents and their family were forced to leave Vienna and return to Czechoslovakia. To live destitute in the Prague ghetto. In 1938 my grandfather, married to a German woman, Lisa my grandmother, dropped everything and went to see his parents in Prague doing what he could for them. My great grandfather had managed to save a few items but one that was of particular importance to him was his gold plated Doxa watch, probably manufactured in Italy, but the factory where it was produced was destroyed in the war.
Now this watch was the present of the King of Montenegro to my Grandfather. One day, highly emotional, in Munich in 1972 , my grandfatehr took out this gold watch and said, one day my boys, one day, if you are very good, if you are not bad, one of you will get this gold watch that used to belong to my father. I understand why he said that. What he couldn't say. His guilt. A bad son leaving his father to die in the Ghetto. He wept. Of course we didn't understand because I was 12 and my brothers were 10.
Well I was the lucky boy who got the watch in its soft black leather pouch and I wondered about it, but before I could find out about it it was stolen by two employees of DirectTV in Mexico City. They stole it, and my wifes river pearls, while I went to make tea for them. I wish them the very worst of luck.
But the value of that watch, as valuable an object as it might have been, was really in the story of my grandfather. And so I have been the grandson and great grandson who has been able to, without too much pain, because I am more removed than my mother or Grandfather from what happened, to tell the story.
I was that lucky boy. I got the watch that was in Grandpa's pocket as he came back from Prague tortured by worry.
The annexation of Bosnia was one of the causes of the First World War and my grandfather, based in Sarajevo, Foreign editor of the Neue Freie Presse is in the picture of the Archduke Ferdinand just before he was assasinated. He is standing on the steps. I have two photos of his he preserved from the occasion. They are not from the Internet. They must be historic documents.
He died in extreme poverty in the ghetto of throat cancer untreated. He left his wife Regina to fend for herself. Regina was rounded up and sent to Terezin. Theresenstadt. I have described how this happened. My uncle was there and witnessed it.
I understand that the murder of 6 million people, more will affect countless millions. That the history of the war and persecution affects the lives of the whole of Europe and that WW2 is both a personal and world tragedy. But today I was listening to the History of World in a Hundred objects, the final object and the one that stands out and it was a picture painted by a Jewish artist in Teresenstadt, in Terezin. Where my great grandmother was before she was sent on to die in Treblinka. Again I have discussed this and documented it.
I read and looked into Terezin and what it was. I contacted the head of the Jewish Museum in Prague. I bought old out of print books about the Jewish Ghetto and its life and culture and read memoirs of survivors and found the paintings of Bedrich Fritta in one of the books published by the Jewish Museum. It tears at your heart. A series of pictures drawn by an artist for their little son and hidden behind bricks in a Terezin and in one of the pictures it tells his son: This is not a dream, and it shows pictures of flowers and meadows and a strong son. Both the painter and his wife died, the wife died of starvation. She is short and has large glasses in the picture.
And so, friends. It struck me that though all our families suffered, probably, during WW1 and 2, by family history seems to bracket it.
Isidor Steinhardt was erased from history by the Nazis and he had no obituary in any European newspaper because he was a Jew. But in 1941 a Bulgrian newspaper, in recognition perhaps of his services to Bulgaria published his obituary despite the fact that he was turned by the Nazis into an obscure old man in the Prague Ghetto.
The writing on the side Papa Steinhardt, is that of my Great Grandmother who perished in Treblinka. Her daughter my Great Aunt Else died in Auschwitz, I have written about this elsewhere.
I would like to honour the memory of our great grandfather and great grandmother. My brothers Andy Hall and Chris Hall join me in this as do the whole Hall family. Of course I do so in the name of my mother Eve Hall and my Father Tony Hall and Lisa and Richard and Arthur Steinhardt. I have been expressly deputised by all of them to do so at one point or another.You will find quite a few pictures of them on this blog.
Phil Hall
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