Son of Jenny Kornfeld (née Schiff; later Jeanette Schenker) and Emil Kornfeld; business man.

Felix was the younger son of Emil Kornfeld and his wife Jenny (later to be Jeanette Schenker), his elder brother being Erich. Felix was born and brought up in Aussig (Ústí nad Labem). In a letter of 1926, Jenny’s sister-in-law, Anna Schiff wrote as follows (OJ 14/8, [1], March 21, 1925): I wanted to report to you what little I know about your two children. Yesterday we received a wedding announcement for your son Erich, which I enclose. I gather that they have regard for you: Erich was obliged to enter the business of his father, Felix was for a long time a volunteer in Berlin.

Felix eventually followed his brother into his father's company, Klaber & Kornfeld, traders in petroleum, oil and grease for industrial purposes. When Emil died in 1937, Erich and Felix continued the company until it ceased trading soon afterward. Felix suffered from a "lame foot" (Fusslähmung), possibly from early in life.

Felix married Elsa Wobornik (1906‒) on March 7, 1931, and the couple had a son, Tomáš Kornfeld (“Tommy”), born August 7, 1932. In a letter of 1934, Rosa Weil gave her elder sister Jeanette the following report: "Your sons both have pretty, likeable wives (non-Jews), and each has one splendid child: Erich has Peter, Felix has Tommy" (OJ 14/10, [15].

Felix and Erich ‒ neither of them observant Jews ‒ were arrested by the Gestapo on November 10, 1938 and taken to a concentration camp. Whereas Erich was released six weeks later, Felix was held until May 31, 1939, on which date he was released conditional upon emigration. At about this time, "out of fear, and compelled by those around her," Elsa (who was not Jewish) divorced him. Felix wrote to his mother on August 23, 1939 (OJ 14/7, [1]), conveying this information and reporting his general state of mind, and asking for her help in finding a way to emigrate. She replied to him on September 1 and October 12, 1939, neither of which survives. He was later re-arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Theresienstadt, where he encountered his mother for the first and only time since 1910, before he was transferred to Auschwitz, where he perished on November 15, 1944 (Jeanette remained in Theresienstadt, dying in January 1945).

Felix Kornfeld and Heinrich Schenker

Heinrich Schenker had been a close friend of Emil Kornfeld since the early 1890s, apparently visiting the Kornfeld family in Aussig, where he got to know Erich and Felix, as well as holidaying in the Alps with Emil and Jenny up to 1910, in which summer Jenny left Emil and her sons to be permanently with Heinrich in Vienna. Thereafter, all contact between Jenny and the family was broken off by Emil, and her name was "taboo" to the two sons (OJ 71/21a, [2]).

Correspondence

One letter from Felix to Jeanette survives as OJ 14/7, [1] (1939). Summer vacation postcards to Felix from Schenker alone, or jointly with Emil, or Jenny, or Erich, from the Tyrol in the period 1903-10, existed in 1988 in the possession of his son, Tomáš Kornfeld; letters also existed at that time from Jenny to Felix, written on Felix's birthday in 1912 and 1917, at least the first of which went unanswered, and further letters in 1940-41 (reported in OJ 71/21a, [2]).

Sources

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