Youngest child of Sophie and Salo (Salomon) Guttman, younger brother of Hans and Frieda, nephew of Heinrich Schenker. — For more information, see Guttmann family.

Life summary

Nothing is known of Julian’s childhood or early education. The Guttmann family lived in the Sereth district of Bukovina until the outbreak of World War 1, when Sophie, Salo, and their three children fled to Vienna. Heinrich gives a vivid description in his diary of the whole family on September 17, 1914. After his portrayal of Hans and Frieda, he concluded: Most favorably bestowed is the parents’ darling, Julko, whose sweet, graceful expression may be extolled .

Following that visit, the family moved to Bielitz (Poland) for the length of World War I. At the end of the war, while his parents and sister Frieda returned via Vienna and Vincovci (Croatia) to Sereth, Julian remained in Vienna with his older brother Hans, where he passed his school-leaving examination. In October 1919 he entered the Export Academy in Vienna XIX/1 (courses on economy, trade, business, commodities, law, etc.). He visited his uncle Heinrich regularly every Saturday in the autumn of that year. He was also in contact with his uncle, Moriz Schenker, the banker, through whom the family hoped that he might find employment.

In October 1920 he moved to Bucharest to take up a new position, then in December 1921 had a change of job (unspecified). In summer 1923 he entered military service, reporting in 1924 that he was “having difficulty in Rumania as a Jewish soldier,” but in the October he passed the officer’s exam. In 1928, his hopes of getting employment through Moriz Schenker were again dashed.

Sophie’s letters and postcard to Jeanette Schenker in 1938 and 1939 report that he is looking after his parents, and that he is also good with Frieda’s children in Czernowitz; and in September 1939 (in relation to the plight of Jeanette's second son, Felix Kornfeld) that he “has rescued several people entirely unknown to him. – But now it is out of the question” (OJ 11/31, [4]).

Nothing is known of how Julian fared during World War 2, and whether he evaded transportation. A reference to his having “renounced his RPR citizenship on 31 July 1964” (Jewishgen) probably refers to a different person.

Correspondence with the Schenkers

One note from Julian with photograph to Heinrich survives at OJ 14/5 (original preserved at OJ 72/18, item 12). A photograph of him in a classroom group in 1917 is preserved at OJ 73/18, item 12, and other photographs in family groups are items 4 (c.1904), 5 (c.1907, Suczawa), 8 (c.1912, Sereth), 11 (c.1916/17), 13 (c.1919), 14 (c.1920), and 15 (c.1922).

Sources

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