 1939 - 1940 (1 years)
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| Name |
Ernst Philip Robert Oettinger |
| Born |
12 Mar 1939 |
Amsterdam, Netherlands  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Hebrew Birth |
21 Ada 5699 |
| Holocaust |
Weinberger János (Jan in Czech, Jean in French)
Born on December 27, 1908 in Mestecko (or Mocenok) in the Hlohovec district of then Czech Republic (now Slovakia).
Second child and only son of Frantisek Weinberger (1881-1939) and Nina Nágel (1885-192).
His sisters were Lenke (or Lenka – 1907-2000), Piri (or Priscilla -1911-1999), Edit (1914-1949) and Anna (1920- !944. She was deported to, and killed, in Auschwitz).
Like his sisters, he was brought up in the Hungarian, Czech and Slovak languages. He was also fluent in German and French from childhood, and was taught English as well. He learnt Latin and Greek in gymnasium. He got his matriculation in Bratislava in 1928, where he obtained his LLD (Degree in Law) in 1931. He played the violin and the saxophone.
He embraced the ideas of the Left very early, and while in Bratislava worked in a factory for some time.
He arrived in Paris on November 23, 1931.
He started a career as a journalist and a writer (mainly a poet, although he was also an essayist and a critic.) He left two novels, of which I only have a few pages. He contributed to many Hungarian-language political and cultural journals.
From 1935 through September 1939, he was editor-in-chief of Szép Szó (The Free Word) – a political and cultural weekly published in Paris.
He was part of the Paris-based French and foreign intelligentsia before WWII, and a well-known figure from the Left . He was acquainted with Jean-Paul Sartre and Arthur Koestler.
It appears that he had had links to the French Communist Party in the early thirties. But his bourgeois background, idealistic leftist ideas, his anti-Fascist and anti-Stalinist stance had made him a target for the Stalinists within the Party since 1935. In any case, he had broken all ties with the Party long before he was arrrested--on September 1st 1939--by the French police (probably, the « Sûreté Nationale »), with a cohort of Leftist foreigners labelled as «undesirable aliens» at the outbreak of the war. There were no legal charges against him.
He was placed in solitary confinement in the Santé prison until November 12, 1939, at which time he was interned in the Roland Garros Stadium. At that time, the prestigious tennis court had been transformed into a temporary internment camp.
On November 17, 1939, he was transferred to the concentration camp of Le Vernet d’Ariège, where he spent two years and ten months.
On September 21, 1942, he was tranferred to Drancy.
On September 25, 1942, he was deported in convoy 37 for Auschwitz (his name was misspelt as Wrinberger, Jan, on the Nazi list).
The convoy first stopped in Kosel (Kassel) where the Nazis selccted about 175 men between age 18 and 45 for labor-force. My father could have been one of them : he was 33 years-old. Then, upon arrival at Auschwitz, they made a second selection of 40 men (and 91 women) for labor. Again, my father could have been among them. The rest of convoy 37 was sent to the gas chambers upon arrival at Auschwitz.
He had met his future wife, Mária Elefánt, in Paris. She was a Hungarian-born Czech citizen. She was born on February 29, 1912 in a poor family in Beregszász (now Berehove in Ukraine), and had six siblings. They were orphaned at an early age, were raised by the elder sister, and then moved to Paris, where they were employed in the sewing and dressmaking business. Jan and Mária were married on September 23, 1937.
They had one child (myself), Catherine, born on July 4, 1941, in Lyon.
After the war, in spite of my mother’s relentless efforts, we could never find out what had happened to him.
My mother never remarried. On December 27, 1977 (the date of my father’s sixty-sixth birthday, had he survived), she had a monument erected in remembrance of her « beloved husband » in the Jewish Section of the Pantin cemetery in Paris.
She died of a heart attack on November 13, 1982. Her grave is next to his.
Catherine Weinberger-Thomas*
*I am a French citizen, a Professor emeritus from Paris University. I am currently living in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles, May 27, 2010 |
| Holocaust Victim |
Y |
| Hebrew Death |
8 Iya 5700 |
| Residence |
Amsterdam, Netherlands |
|
|
| Died |
16 May 1940 |
Amsterdam, Netherlands |
|
|
| Buried |
19 May 1940 |
Diemen, Netherlands |
| Person ID |
I15075 |
Blank Family |
| Last Modified |
25 May 2010 |
| Father |
Johann Friedrich Paul Oettinger, b. 9 Sep 1906, Hamburg, Germany , d. 16 May 1940, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Age 33 years) |
| Mother |
Elizabeth Oettinger, b. 10 Apr 1909, Hamburg, Germany , d. 16 May 1940, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Age 31 years) |
| Family ID |
F10802 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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