Bratislava Pressburg Pozsony

Recalling the Jewish Bratislava (Engl.

"Semanario Hebreo" 05/05/2011 (Montevideo, Uruguay)
[Weekly Hebrew]
RECALLING THE JEWISH BRATISLAVA
By Egon Friedler
Review of "Bratislava - Pressburg - Pozsony: Jewish secular Endeavors (1867-1938) - A. Robert Neurath - 316 pgs. Edit.2010 USA
Very few people remember today that Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was one of the oldest centers of Jewish life in Europe. A book by a descendant of one of the most prominent Jewish families of this city has decided to recall in a book edited and richly documented extensively. The author is A. Robert Neurath, who was born in Bratislava, graduated from the Technical University of that city in that city in 1957 and in 1968 earned a doctorate in microbiology in Vienna. For 45 years he devoted himself to the study of viruses in causing diseases and published some 250 scientific papers and registered 23 patents. With the fall of communism visited his hometown and was able to read several papers on the history of the Jewish community. In his view, these publications are too focused on religious issues and were greedy in their references to the achievements of professionals, artists, intellectuals and Jewish businessmen and their role within the multinational society of Bratislava. Therefore, wanted to make this personal testimony based on both written and oral sources.
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As indicated by A. Robert Neurath in his introduction, during the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg multinational Bratislava was a city in which residents Germans, Hungarians and Slovaks were the majority. Therefore, the city had three names: Pressburg, Bratislava and Pozsony (the last Hungarian name). The legal emancipation of the Jews took place in 1867 after the conversion of Empire in the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy. Bratislava remained in the Hungarian and the Hungarian Parliament approved full civil and political rights for Jews. In 1895, the Jewish religion was recognized as "accepted religion" with a status similar to that of the various Christian groups. This allowed a relatively successful integration of Jews into Hungarian society and many Jews were soon to excel in medicine, science, culture, business and political life. This situation changed with the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918 and except for an unstable transition period, until the fall of the liberal regime in 1938 and Czechoslovakia in the income of the sphere of influence of German Nazism.
During the first 38 years of the twentieth century remained fully multi-ethnic character of Bratislava and thanks to the liberal and open attitude of the president of Czechoslovakia, Tomas Masaryk (1850-1957) the Jews had no obstacles to develop its activities in the most various disciplines and contributed very significantly to enriching the lives of the city.
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This contribution is reminiscent of the book, he rescues a series of individual stories, many with a tragic end during the Nazi era and World War II. But above all, the work of Dr.Neurath is the evocation of a lively and creative community that comes alive through the numerous illustrations of excellent quality that provides the volume.
The book begins with the important contribution of the Jews from Bratislava to architecture. Among the names mentioned include Louis I. Khan (1901-1974), Vojtech Bustin (19805-1944) Geyduscheck Imrich (1898-1944) Jiri Grossmann (1892-1957) desided Quastler (1889-1944) Skutecky Alexander (1883-1944) Spitzer Emerich (1904-1943) Endre Steiner (1908 -) and Arthur Szalatnai (1891-1961) and the very attractive book features photographs of the main buildings, hospitals, schools, airports, private homes, etc.. built by the architects mentioned, which also offer brief biographies.
The next chapter deals with the contribution of Jews to the visual arts, literature, music, science and chess. The chapter starts with the painter's life history of Adolf Frankl (1908-1983) who survived Auschitz and typhoid being released by the Red Army in January 1945 and later lived in Bratislava, New York and Vienna. Armin Stern (1883 - 1944) however, managed to escape shortly before the war and died in the United States. He specialized in portraits and left a particularly valuable Dr.Eduard Benes, the Czechoslovak government leader in exile. But judging by the excellent
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pictures published in the book the most interesting Jewish artist who gave the city of Bratislava was Reichental Frantisek (1895-1971), who exhibited in Paris (1925) and Prague (1928) in addition to presenting his work often in his hometown. The only sculptor mentioned in the book is Arthur Fleischmann (1896-1990). Two Plays: Balinese dancer and a bust of Beethoven attest to the quality of his work.
Then the book discusses the Jewish contribution to the literature and other humanistic disciplines. Curiously, the author who achieved greater international fame was Victor L?on (born Hirschfeld) who along with Leo Stein wrote the libretto for the highly successful operetta "The Merry Widow" by Franz Lehar. Other figures quoted by Neurath include biblical scholar Leopold Dukes (1810-1891) the philologist Albert Cohn (1814-1877) Orientalism Eduard Mahler (1857-1945) filmmaker Jan Kalina (1913-1981) and novelists Geiz Come (1901 -1956) and Hela Volanska (1912-1996).
The contribution of Jewish music in Bratislava seems to have been much reduced since only one name recorded Neurath: the musicologist and composer Rudolf Reti (1885-1957) who after serving as a critic, musicologist and composer in his country and in Austria, managed to emigrate to the United States in 1939 and made an important teaching in this country that also published five books of music theory.
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Also in the field of science the book has only one name: the mathematician, physicist and philosopher Alfred Tauber (1866-1942) who died in the Terezin concentration camp, a month after being interned by the Nazis.
Other areas cited by Neurath, in which the names are too numerous to cite here are the medicine, chess, sports, local politics, industry, commerce and philanthropy. Finally, include some Jews from Bratislava who came to play a prominent role in the State of Israel. The biggest name is Eran Laor (born Eric Landsteiner) (1900-1990) who emigrated to Mandatory Palestine after living in Vienna and Istanbul. In addition to important positions in the fledgling Jewish state was a leading cartographer.
In a totally different field highlighted Imrich Lichtenfeld (Sde-Or Imrich) (1910-1988) in Slovakia wrestling champion in his youth, also excelled as a boxer and gymnast. In 1940 he managed to flee to Palestine with the last ship and joined the British Army brigade Czech and fought in Lebanon, Syria, Libya and Egypt. Later, he was commander dela Haganah and after the creation of Israel was the chief instructor of hand to hand fighting the army.
Very significantly, the scientist author of the book, he devotes his final chapter to Dr.Karol Koch (1890-1981) who was not Jewish, but he did
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heroic work to save Jews during the Nazi period and deservedly was declared "a fair among nations "by Yad Vashem in 1971.