Kantor, Eva Ida Benjamine

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:20 +0000

Kantor, Eva Ida Benjamine Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 11/17/2020 - 19:19

Eva Kantor

30 September 1908 Weikersdorf bei Baden – 2014 Toronto

Eva Ida Benjamine Kantor was the second of three children of Hugo Kantor and his wife Wilhelmine Sofie Hedwig, née Preyss von Steinbühl. The family lived in a large company apartment on the first floor of Kantor, Pollack & Co, a cotton mill and bleachery in Schwadorf near Vienna, where Hugo Kantor was a partner and from 1924 director. After completing her studies at the former Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (Academy of Music and Performing Arts) in 1932, Eva Kantor taught guitar at various Viennese institutions and gave private lesson. Directly after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in March 1938, Hugo Kantor was dismissed with immediate effect on account of his Jewish origins, the company handed over to a provisional director and the family's apartment sealed. The family moved to relatives in Vienna. In early May 1938 Hugo and Hedwig Kantor were arrested on suspicion of tax fraud. In the meantime Eva and her younger brother Stefan took care of their parents' Vermögensanmeldungen (declaration of assets). After Hugo and Hedwig had been released, the family prepared to leave. The removal goods were handed to Spedition Johann Oberndorfer, which applied in February 1939 to the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz (Central Monument Protection Authority) on behalf of Eva Kantor for export authorization for "20 watercolours, 10 oil paintings, 1 print, 2 drawings, 14 carpets, 1 pastel". The export was authorized, except for a landscape watercolour by Josef Kriehuber, whose whereabouts are unknown today. Eva had earlier sold two drawings by Rudolf von Alt to the Albertina. Hugo and Hedwig Kantor were able to leave Vienna for Britain in May 1939. In August of that year Eva and Stefan Kantor also escaped to Britain. Around a year later Eva followed her elder brother Theodor to Buenos Aires. He had already escaped to Argentina via Britain in early July 1938. She worked initially as a governess and then as a music, English and German teacher. Her parents also came to Buenos Aires in February 1942, where Hugo Kantor died in September 1945 and Hedwig in February 1971. Stefan Kantor emigrated in 1939 from Britain to Sydney. The drawings by Rudolf von Alt sold to the Albertina were recommended for restitution in 2013.

Keywords

Musician

Nazi persecutee

Julia Eßl

4 July 2022

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Eva Kantor, 3.5.2013, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Kantor_Eva_2013-05-03.pdf (3.12.2020).

Georg Gaugusch, Wer einmal war. Das jüdische Großbürgertum Wiens 1800–1938. A–K (= Jahrbuch der Heraldisch-Genealogischen Gesellschaft Adler, 3. Folge 16), Wien 2011.

Weinberger, Charles

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:56 +0000

Weinberger, Charles

Leonhard Weidinger Mon, 04/26/2021 - 19:07

Charles Weinberger

3 April 1861 Vienna – 1 November 1939 Vienna

actually Carl Rudolf Michael Weinberger

Charles Weinberger was born in 1861 as the illegitimate son of the Viennese stage performer and operetta singer Helene Weinberger. He started studying composition and instrumentation in Vienna in 1880, among others under Alexander Leitermeyer and Joseph Sulzer, son of the Viennese chief cantor Salomon Sulzer. He enjoyed his first successes around 1885 with the waltz Äolsharfenklänge and in 1887 with the operetta Pagenstreiche based on a libretto by his stepfather Hugo Wittmann. Together with Carl Millöcker, Franz von Suppé and Carl Michael Ziehrer, he was one of the most successful Viennese operetta composers and also wrote over two hundred lieder. He was co-founder of the Union dramatischer Autoren und Komponisten, the Gesellschaft der Autoren und Komponisten und Musikverleger and the Genossenschaft der dramatischen Schriftsteller und Komponisten Wiens. In the 1920s his works fell increasingly out of fashion and were largely forgotten. Weinberger was no longer able to earn a living from them and was awarded an honorary pension by the city of Vienna instead. A year earlier he had been given the title professor by Federal President Michael Hainisch to mark his fortieth anniversary as a composer.

After the annexation to the German Reich in 1938, the Culture Department of the city of Vienna cancelled his pension, stating that Weinberger had supported the Dollfuß regime and that his "Aryan" lineage was not established. After Weinberger brought proof of his mother's "Aryan" lineage, the city of Vienna awarded him a monthly "grace payment". Weinberger died on 11 November 1939 in Vienna. His widow and fourth wife Käthe Weinberger, née Susmann was considered Jewish by the Nazis, although she had left the Jewish community in August 1938. To survive she applied to the municipal welfare department for continued payment of her husband's pension, but the application was rejected. For a lifetime pension of 100 Reichsmarks per month she offered to give her husband' entire musical estate to the city of Vienna, which the Stadtbibliothek (now Wienbibliothek) and the Historisches Museum (now Wien Museum) took over in 1941. The library paid 1,150 Reichsmarks and the museum 600 Reichsmarks instead of the agreed pension. These amounts were transferred to a frozen account. Käthe Weinberger escaped deportation and survived in Vienna.

In 2001 the Vienna Restitution Commission recommended the return of Charles Weinberger's estate. In 2002 the successors of Charles and Käthe Weinberger waived their right and left the objects with the two institutions.

Keywords

Musician

Gerhard Milchram

1 April 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Museen der Stadt Wien/Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek (Hg.), Die Restitution von Kunst- und Kulturgegenständen aus dem Besitz der Stadt Wien 1998–2001, Wien 2002.

Dritter Bericht des amtsführenden Stadtrates für Kultur und Wissenschaft über die gemäß dem Gemeinderatsbeschluss vom 29. April 1999 erfolgte Übereignung von Kunst- und Kulturgegenständen aus den Sammlungen der Museen der Stadt Wien sowie der Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek vom 21. November 2002 (Restitutionsbericht 2002), URL: www.wienmuseum.at/fileadmin/user_upload/PDFs/Restitutionsbericht_2002.pdf (3.12.2020).
Vierter Bericht des amtsführenden Stadtrates für Kultur und Wissenschaft über die gemäß dem Gemeinderatsbeschluss vom 29. April 1999 erfolgte Übereignung von Kunst- und Kulturgegenständen aus den Sammlungen der Museen der Stadt Wien sowie der Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek vom 10. November 2003 (Restitutionsbericht 2003), URL: www.wienmuseum.at/fileadmin/user_upload/PDFs/Restitutionsbericht_2003.pdf (3.12.2020).

Uwe Harten, Weinberger, Charles (eig. Carl Rudolf Michael), in: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon, URL: www.musiklexikon.ac.at/ml/musik_W/Weinberger_Charles.xml (3.12.2020).

Sylvia Mattl-Wurm (Hg.), Interieurs. Wiener Künstlerwohnungen 1830–1930, Wien 1990.

N. N., Professor Charles Weinberger, in: Wiener Sonn- und Montags-Zeitung, 2.7.1928, 9, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=wsz&datum=19280702&seite=9 (3.12.2020).

Karin Ploog, … Als die Noten laufen lernten … Geschichte und Geschichten der U-Musik bis 1945. Zweiter Teil, Komponisten – Librettisten – Texter aus Kabarett – Operette – Revue – Film, Norderstedt 2015.

Fritz Racek, Charles Weinberger zum 100. Geburtstag (= Ausstellungskatalog zur 103. Kleinausstellung der Wiener Stadtbibliothek), Wien 1961.

Gerhard Renner, Die Nachlässe in der Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek. Ein Verzeichnis, Wien 1993.