Freud family papers

Martin Freud (1889-1967) was born in Vienna, Austria to Dr. Sigmund Freud, the psychiatrist, and Martha Bernays (1861–1951). In 1908 Martin entered a university to study law. He was an enthusiastic sportsman and, being politically engaged, joined a Zionist movement, "The Kadimah" (Forward). In 1910 he joined the Imperial horse artillery, and when World War I broke out, he volunteered for military service. In January 1915 he was stationed in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. After being slightly wounded in August 1915, he was promoted to lieutenant, but was taken prisoner of war. He was released in 1919. Martin met Ernestine “Esti” Drucker (1896-1980) at a party during the war and they corresponded regularly during his imprisonment as a prisoner of war. Esti came from an affluent assimilated Jewish Viennese family and served as a volunteer Red Cross nurse from September 1914 to January 1915. She then took up speech instruction. On December 7, 1919 they were married in Vienna and had two children, Walter (1921-2004) and Sophie (b. 1924). Martin was employed as a clerk in a newly created bank in Vienna, but with his background in law, he became increasingly involved in his father's investments and helped manage the publication of his books. Esti began teaching speech techniques for people with speech impairments and voice disorders and became a speech, voice, and hearing therapist. In 1932, she became a lecturer and teacher at the Vienna University for voice and speech techniques. After the German invasion of Austria in 1938, Esti received a letter from the Department of Education revoking her teaching contract at the university, and the family made plans to emigrate from Austria. In May 1938, they received their passports and on May 14, 1938, Sophie and her mother took the night train from Vienna to Paris. Martin, who had become estranged from his wife, left for London on the next day with Walter. In the meantime, the persecution of Dr. Sigmund Freud by the Nazis in Vienna had made headlines throughout the world, and in June 1938, Sigmund and the rest of the Freud family also left for London. In Paris, Esti organized a speech and voice rehabilitation clinic and enrolled Sophie in the high school Lycée Jean-de-La-Fontaine. In May 1940, Sophie heard that the population from northern France was leaving in a panic because the Germans had broken through the Maginot Line, which was the defense line on the French - Belgian border. On June 8, 1940, Esti and Sophi left Pairs on bicycles and headed south toward Nice. Esti found work as a speech therapist, and Sophie continued her schooling at the Lycee de Nice. The situation in Nice deteriorated quickly after racial laws were enacted, and food shortages became acute. Esti and Sophie sought refuge elsewhere. Esti's sisters, Lily and Marianne (Janne) and their families had previously left Vienna and immigrated to New York. After Lily succeeded in obtaining U.S. visas for Sophie and Esti in December 1941, they left Nice, France for Casablanca, Morocco to await their American visas. Esti organized a school for deaf children and Sophie enrolled in a school that was organized by the Jewish community. In September 1942, Sophie and Esti left Casablanca for Lisbon, Portugal, and on October 23, 1942, they boarded the SS Carvalho Arjuo for the United States. The ship docked in Baltimore, MD on November 2, 1942. Nine days before they left, Esti's mother, Ida Drucker, was deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt concentration camp. From there she was deported to Auschwitz where she perished. Esti continued her work as a speech therapist in New York, and in 1952, at the age of 56, she received her Ph.D. in speech therapy. Martin and Walter continued to live in London. Martin and Esti never divorced, but never saw each other again. In 1942, Sophie enrolled in Radcliffe College, where she majored in psychology. Three years later, she married a German immigrant, Paul Lowenstein, who had escaped from a Nazi transit camp in France and they had three children. Sophie earned her master's degree in social work at Simmons College in Boston, MA, and her Ph.D. in social welfare at Brandeis University. She was a practicing social worker in the field of child welfare and child-parent guidance. In 1970 Sophie Freud obtained her Ph.D. from the Florence Heller School for Social Welfare at Brandeis and went on to become a professor at the School of Social Work at Simmons College. In 1988, Sophie wrote ''My Three Mothers and Other Passions'' and in 2007 she wrote "Living in the Shadow of the Freud Family" based on her mother's letters and autobiography.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Sophie Freud

Funding Note: The accessibility of this collection was made possible by the generous donors to our crowdfunded Save Their Stories campaign.

Sophie Freud donated the Freud family papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010.