14d. The pianist and chamber musician Helene Herschel née Steiner

Three sheet music prints containing provenance references to Helene Herschel or Helene Steiner (1875 – died following deportation on 21.09.1942) were discovered in the mdw University Library collection. They came into the mdw University Library collection in 2004 through a donation from the Musikhaus Macourek.

Helene Steiner was born on 22 April 1875 in Tarnów (today Poland) and worked as a pianist as well as a musical consultant. From 1919 to 1920, she studied harmony with Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) in Vienna. In addition, the chamber musician and piano teacher gave lectures on behalf of the Austrian Association of Music Education (“Österreichischer Musikpädagogischer Verband”). In 1898, she married the merchant Viktor Herschel (1865 – died following deportation on 21.09.1942) in a Jewish ceremony at the Vienna City Temple. They had a daughter together: Bettina Herschel (1899–1977).

After the “Anschluss” of Austria on 12 March 1938, the couple, who were not practising Jews, were persecuted as such under the definitions of the Nuremberg Laws. Helene and Viktor Herschel were forced out of their apartment at 18 Liniengasse in the 6th district, where they had lived for 39 years. Their last address, from May 1942, was in a so-called “Sammelwohnung“ at 2 Hammer-Purgstall-Gasse in the 2nd district. On 22 July 1942, Viktor and Helene Herschel were deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt Ghetto and on 21 September 1942 to the Treblinka extermination camp. Helene and Viktor Herschel were murdered in the Holocaust. Her only child, Bettina Herschel, married the merchant Stefan Pollak 1922 (1896–1994) in a Jewish ceremony. She and her family were also persecuted after the “Anschluss” and were forced to escape from Austria to the USA in July 1938. In 1998, their son, Gerald Alexander Pollak (born 1929), was interviewed as part of the USC Shoah Foundation’s Holocaust – Jewish Survivors, which had been conducting audiovisual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust since 1994.

Whether Helene Herschel had to sell the three sheet music prints to a music dealer prior to being deported or whether these were among her belongings within the Property Removed by the Gestapo (Verwaltungsstelle jüdisches Umzugsgutes der Gestapo) could not be further researched due to the lack of available records. Based on what is currently known, these three sheet music prints are deemed to be stolen property and are to be returned to the rightful heirs.