Early Life
Bliss was born Karl Kasiel Blitz, the eldest of four children to Michel Anchel and Jeanette Blitz, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire near Russia. The family were impoverished and the senior Blitz supported the family as an optician, mechanic and wood turner.
Later on Bliss said that the symbols on his father’s circuit diagrams made instant sense to him. They were a “logical language”. He was similarly impressed by chemical symbols which he thought could be read by anyone, regardless of their mother tongue.
Bliss’ early life was difficult. It was cold and his family were poor and hungry. He suffered anti-Semitic taunts.
When Bliss was eight years old, Russia lost the Russo-Japanese War, Russian pogroms against the Jews accelerated and refugees came into Bliss’ town from the nearby Russian town of Kishinev. Also in 1905 Bliss saw a slide show of the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of Weyprecht and Payer. It inspired him to study engineering to improve technology for ordinary people.
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