Doris Schneider (née Spitz)
Dorris sitting with her cousin, Otto Zeichner.
Pre-World War II, Austria.
Introduction
Doris Schneider was born on June 6, 1931, and lived in Klagenfurt, Austria, with her mother and father, Gertrude and Julius. On March 12, 1938, the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria incorporated the entire country into the Third Reich. Nazi race laws meant that Doris and other Jewish children could no longer attend school. Doris's cousin organized nature hikes with the local Jewish children to supplement their education.
On November 10, 1938, known as Kristallnacht, Nazis stormed the apartment and ransacked the Spitz family home, throwing precious items out of the windows and onto the street. One Nazi swung an axe at Doris, but miraculously she was physically unharmed because of the large doll in her lap. Her father was arrested and sent to Dachau but was released on the condition that he would immigrate to England within days (Julius was granted a visa before his arrest). However, Doris did not have separate papers, and the Nazis would only allow Julius and Gertrude to leave Austria. Doris's mother stayed behind, but her father had to leave. Once in England, Julius convinced his English sponsor to also sponsor Doris. In December 1938, Doris had a passport to immigrate to England with her mother. Gertrude cared for other children on a train that traveled to the Netherlands, and from the Rotterdam port, they boarded a ship to travel across the English Channel.
Once in England, Doris was separated from her parents and lived in a children's home in Cornwall from age seven to ten. Separation from her parents and the destruction that came with the bombing of England was difficult, but during those years, Doris discovered her love for reading. After the war, she remained in England with her parents and studied many languages in hopes of working at the United Nations. She met her husband, Alfred (Fred) Schneider, and they moved to Niagara Falls, Ontario, for a few years before immigrating to the United States.
Doris with her parents, Gertrude and Julius, in 1938, shortly before fleeing to England.
Also shown is Doris with her mother in Austria, circa 1936.
Hanukkiah
Austria, c. 1920
A nine-branched candelabrum with eight candleholders and a shamash (a holder for the kindling candle) is used to light candles each night during the festival of Hanukkah. The holiday commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabees' victory over Greek rulers in the 2nd century BCE.
A map of Austria and its borders in 1933, years before the 1938 Anschluss.
Postcards circa 1910 and 1932 showing Klagenfurt's Neuer Platz (city hall). Before the annexation of Austria, the Klagenfurt Neuer Platz was known as an example of the German Renaissance era. Two famous monuments, the Dragon (Lindwurm) (created to tell the mythical story of the 13th Century floods in Klagenfurt) and Maria Theresa (created by the artist Franz Xaver Pönninger, head of the Imperial and Royal Art Foundry in Vienna), still stand today.
However, after the Anschluss in 1938, the town's square became a local headquarters for the Nazi Regime, decorated with swastikas. It was renamed the Adolf Hitler Platz in 1938, which remained unchanged until 1945.
After intense years of civil war, economic stagnation, political dictatorship, and Austrian Nazi propaganda, Nazi German troops entered the country on March 12, 1938. Austrians welcomed their new occupiers, and the country was officially incorporated into Germany the next day. In a nation-wide vote that was manipulated, 99 percent of the Austrian people wanted the union with Germany. Neither Jews nor Roma were allowed to vote.
During Kristallnacht in November 1938, the Nazis burned the Klagenfurt synagogue. The Torah scrolls were taken out to the street and burned, as well as the furniture. In 1944, a bomb destroyed part of the synagogue. In the aftermath of World War II, a local mechanic cleared the wreckage and used it as a repair garage. In 1959, because no Jews were left in Klagenfurt, the Jewish community in Vienna received ownership. There was no Jewish clergy left to use the remaining building, so they sold it to a contractor. All that remains is a small memorial and a parking lot. Doris did not attend the Klagenfurt synagogue. Her family traveled to Vienna on Jewish holidays to visit and celebrate with relatives.
One of the many precious dolls Doris's mother gave her during the war years. With Doris, it journeyed from Austria to England and then to the United States.
Doris was holding her doll (pictured) when the Nazis entered her family's apartment flat during Kristallnacht. One Nazi swung an axe at Doris, but the doll head received the brunt of the impact, shattering it. Gertrude replaced the doll's head once they arrived in England. Learn more about Doris's experiences during Kristallnacht from her recorded testimony here.
Doris’s husband, Alfred (Fred) Schneider, was also a child in Austria in the 1930s. In 1934 he made his own Waffen Pass (Weapons Permit). The handmade pass represents how Fred processed the growing tensions in Austria, from the 1934 February Uprising (Austrian Civil War) between the far-right government and socialist forces to the Nazi’s rise to power in Germany.
Translation:
October 25, 1934 - Weapons Permit for Alfred Schneider - Vienna, II (Leopoldstadt District) 1st, Floor, Door Number 13.
We permit you to have a drum revolver. This is granted to you according to § 198. The Authorities.
In December 1938, Doris received a passport issued by the Third Reich, so she and her mother could join her father in England. The Nazis stamped the letter “J” for Jude (Jew) (not pictured) on the first page of the passport.
When Doris was in England, a man named Dr. Sturges took great interest in helping orphaned and displaced children from the war. He gave Doris books, nourishing her love for reading. On one occasion in 1943, she was gifted Sir Percy Leads the Band by Baroness Orczy (1936), the second book of the popular Scarlet Pimpernel series. For Christmas in 1943, she was gifted an early edition of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) inscribed to Doris from Dr. Sturges.
Map of bombings in London, England by the Nazi Regime, originally created by C.S. Hammond & Co., N.Y. More information on "the Blitz" is available here.
When Doris left the children's home in Cornwall and returned to living with her parents, she occupied her time toward the end of the war with journals documenting the advancement of the Allied troops with newspaper clippings. Displayed is one of several journals created by Doris.
A photograph of Doris's parents, Gertrude and Julius, in London, circa 1950.