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Sophie [Sofie] Guttmann (née Schifre Schenker)

born Wisniowczyk, July 1, 1864 or July 1, 1872

Documents associated with this person:

Fourth of the six children born to Johann and Julia Schenker, younger sister of Wilhelm, older sister of Heinrich and Moriz. Her birth date in the family home in Wisniowczyk (Galicia, now in Ukraine) is in doubt: it is given on her marriage certificate as "July 1, 1872"; but Schenker wrote to his friend Moriz Violin, "my parents made my sister out to be some ten years younger for purposes of marriage ‒ in that, too, they succeeded!" (OJ 6/7, [38], June 23, 1928). This would suggest a date in 1862; however, Wilhelm was born in that year.

Sophie Schenker married Salo Guttmann, a medical doctor, on January 6, 1898 at the synagogue in Fünfhaus, in Vienna's 15th district, and the couple had three children: an older son, Hans (b. 1898), a daughter, Frieda (b. 1899 in Suczawa), and a younger son, Julian (Julko) (b. 1901 in Suczawa).

For some part of 1893-96, Sophie seems to have lived in the apartment at Traungasse 1 with Heinrich and Julia Schenker, where she is described as serving among other things as a buffer between the latter two and a laison between Julia and people outside the family. At a later stage, Julia seems to have lived with Sophie and Salo (OJ 6/6, [5] and Schenker's diary for December 23, 1917).

For further information on the family's whereabouts in Eastern Europe, see Guttmann family. Nothing is known about Sophie’s life after 1939 or the circumstances of her death.

Correspondence

Four letters survive from Sophie to Jeanette Schenker after Heinrich’s death (OJ 11/31, [1]–[4]), offering a portrayal of her family in 1938–39 and of the fears of living in rural Bukovina, and none from either Heinrich or Jeanette to her. Schenker had Cotta send a copy of his Harmonielehre to Sophie in 1908 (CA 80). She is very frequently referred to in Schenker's diaries from 1918 onward as sending food supplies to Heinrich and Jeanette.

One letter from Moriz Violin to Sophie and Salo survives as OJ 14/5, [8] (1918).

Sources

Contributors:

  • Marko Deisinger with Ian Bent and Lee Rothfarb

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Correspondence

Diaries