Freud Family - Persecution and Emigration

Persecution and Emigration

The systematic persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany had a profound effect on the family. Four of Freud's five sisters died in concentration camps: Rosa in Auschwitz, Mitzi in Theresienstadt, Dolfi and Paula in Treblinka. Freud's brother, Alexander, escaped with his family to Switzerland shortly before the Anschluss and they subsequently emigrated to Canada. Freud's sons Oliver, a civil engineer, and Ernst Ludwig, an architect, lived and worked in Berlin until Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 after which they fled with their families to France and London respectively. Oliver Freud and his wife later emigrated to the United States. Their daughter, Eva, remained in France with her fiance where she died of influenza in 1944.

Freud and his remaining family left Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938 after Ernest Jones, the then President of the International Psychoanalytic Association, secured immigration permits for them to move to Britain. Permits were also secured for Freud’s housekeeper and maid, his doctor, Max Schur and his family, as well as a number of Freud's colleagues and their families. Freud's grandson, Ernst Halberstadt, was the first to leave Vienna, initially for Paris, before going on to London where after the war he would adopt the name Ernest Freud and train as a psychoanalyst. Next to leave for Paris were Esti, Sophie and Walter Freud, the wife and children of Freud's eldest son, Martin. Mother and daughter remained in France and subsequently emigrated to the United States, whilst Walter joined his father in London. Freud’s sister-in-law, Minna Bernays, was the first to leave for London early in May 1938. She was followed by his son, Martin, on 14 May and then his daughter Mathilde and her husband, Robert Hollitscher, on 24 May. Freud, his wife and daughter, Anna, left Vienna on 4 June, accompanied by their household staff and a doctor. Their arrival at Victoria Station, London on 6 June attracted widespread press coverage. Freud’s Vienna consulting room was replicated in faithful detail in the new family home, 20 Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead, North London.

Two Freuds were to return to Austria as members of the allied forces. Walter Freud was parachuted behind enemy lines as a member of the SOE in April 1945. Advised to change his name in case of capture, he refused declaring “I want the Germans to know a Freud is coming back”. He narrowly survived separation from his comrades and single-handedly secured the surrender of the strategically important Zeltweg aerodrome in southern Austria. Alexander Freud’s son, Harry, returned to post-war Vienna as a US army officer to investigate the fate of his aunts and to bring before the courts Anton Sauerwald, the Nazi appointed official who took control of Freud’s assets and those of the International Psychoanalytic Association.