Brother of Jeanette Schenker (née Schiff), hence from 1919 brother-in-law of Heinrich Schenker.

Life Summary

Victor Schiff was the seventh of the ten children of Wilhelm Schiff and Emilie(née Strasser): Jeanette [m. Kornfeld; m. Schenker] (1874–1945) – Louis (b. 1875) (wife: Hermine Hahn) – Emil (b. 1877) – Friedrika (Frieda) [m. Glässner] (1878–1933) – Emma [m. Winternitz] (1880–c.1943), Klara [m. O. Hatschek] (1881–1939) – Rosa (Růžena Rejle) [m. Weil] (1883–1942) – Helene (Hella) [m. E. Hatschek] (1887–c.1941) and Paul (b. 1895) (wife: Anna Schiff).

Nothing is known of Victor’s early life. During part of World War I he spent time in Sweden and Switzerland, then almost five years in Bolivia (OJ 14/9, [1]). To Paul Schiff he explained his business in Bolivia: I left my wife in sole charge of the business, on the property I had rented. My mule laden with wares, I set off on the trail. Through swamp, virgin forest, over steppes and highland, I trekked into uncharted territory where the natives were still unacquainted with money. For items of low value they exchanged gold dust and precious stones. (OJ 14/9, [2])

Thereafter he moved to Chile, working in business and then, until 1925, in the building trade (OJ 14/9, [1], to Klara). Klara was “disappointed in him” and Paul criticized him “for his business dealings;” but Heinrich countered: “In his independence, his daring and above all his warm-heartedness, Victor appears to exceed his siblings Paul and Klara” (diary, February 4, 1926).

Victor was an enthusiastic Zionist. Heinrich comments: he has hated the Germans since his youth, but at the same time condemns German anti-Semitism, as if it were forbidden by nature for Germans to hate in the same way that they themselves are hated. In general, he is lacking in knowledge of the historical background; he does not understand the difficult position of the Germans in the world, and does the same injustice to these eternally threatened and betrayed people as do other enemies of Germany, though a national Jewish interest ought instead to bind him to Germany: the persecuted, the dispossessed, shoulder to shoulder! (diary, October 16, 1926)

Already in October 1925 Victor declared: I have long nurtured a resolve to go to the land of Israel and to settle down there, just to buy a farmstead in a fruitful area near a small town, and to live out the years that are still allotted me. [...] I have not assimilated; I have nowhere where I can or want to assimilate, I am drawn by a secret power to the land which is the true home of our people. For a long time, I have been pursuing the study of the Hebraic as well as Arabic language, so that it will not be hard for me to acclimate there. I am thinking of embarking on my journey at the end of next year or even earlier – that will be the last journey of my life. (OJ 14/9, [1], to Klara)

Three years later, Heinrich records: “he is sticking with his intention to move to Palestine” (diary, April 30, 1928); and two years later still, of a letter from Victor, “he is taking his leave of South America, is traveling around the world, and will land in Palestine” (diary, March 31, 1930). Yet in 1933, of a letter from Rosa Heinrich recorded: “Victor is back in Chile” (diary, August 29, 1933).

A year later, of a letter from Victor enclosing five photographs, Heinrich reported: “he wanted to visit us, but the conditions in Europe prevented him – nonetheless, he hopes for a reunion” (July 2, 1934), to which Heinrich replied inviting him to visit. The last surviving letter from Victor was, as reported: “cheerful and touching, he thinks of Lie-Liechen as just twenty years old since she still writes so beautifully; he remembers her as an odalisque (of sixteen!), he being six years old!”

Jeanette's Travel to Chile

It was perhaps this abortive plan for a reunion that prompted Jeanette to depart on April 27, 1936 on a six-month journey by sea to Chile and back. She kept a travel diary (OJ 35/9). On the very day of departure she wrote: Two airmail letters arrive from Victor, one to Rosl and one to me, apart from the envelopes full of the most offensive indignities and even threats, which are intended to put me off my trip at the last minute. Rosl reads the letters to me in the bathroom; […] the letters make no impression on me whatever. I had never intended to travel to see my brother; do I even know him?

In August, in Santiago, she went with two new acquaintances to the address that she had been given for Victor: Almost promptly, at 5 o’clock (we had arranged to meet at 4:30) the Eisenberg couple arrive. We go to „Lira 107,“ the young people enter and learn that “people” had moved out the previous day. I take it that my brother has had the postbox for a long time, but has not for a long time lived at the flat whose address he had communicated to the post office. So much the better!

In the end, she left Chile having not made contact, but having taken steps to promote her husband’s work in the country.

Personality and Reactions of Schiff Siblings

In 1925 Victor gave Klara a self-portrait: “I am an inconspicuous person, don’t smoke, don’t go to the theater, not even to the coffee-house, I’ve never played cards, and have for many years not associated with unsavory company.” (OJ 14/9, [1]). He was by far the most observantly Jewish of the ten Schiff siblings, his letters containing long screeds about the land of Israel and the history of its people.

Rosa and Arnold Weil, while giving Victor credit for his independent spirit, tired of his letters. In 1934 she remarked: “Arnold will never again read a letter from Victor; he refuses to listen to his claptrap” (OJ 45/10, [15]), and in 1935 she herself wrote: Hella wrote me enclosing a letter from Victor with some photographs from the seaside resort. Where the florid language ceases the wall begins, the wall with which he shuts us out, and which gets ever thicker and thicker. More than a generation, an ocean separates us.

Of his later life and the circumstances of his death, nothing is currently known.

Correspondence and Photographs

Only one item of correspondence between Victor and Jeanette is known now to survive (OJ 14/9, [3]). However, a substantial correspondence between the two had taken place before 1903, Victor’s side of which was still in Jeanette’s possession as late as 1926, and Jeanette’s side of which had been lost before that date. A complete break then ensued until 1926, when Jeanette wrote to Valparaiso on February 7, 1926 (received by Victor on March 8), to which he replied on March 21 (OJ 14/9, [3]). Thereafter an intermittent correspondence continued until 1934, none of which now survives: 1. Jeanette to Victor July 8, 1926, describing their life in Vienna; 2. Victor to Jeanette, partly in Hebrew, received October 27, 1926; 3. Victor to Jeanette, received April 30, 1928, expressing his intention to emigrate to Palestine; 4. Jeanette to Victor, June 24, 1928, about their siblings; 5. Jeanette to Victor, July 11, 1929; 6. Victor to Jeanette, received March 31, 1930, about to travel round the world ending in Palestine; 7. Victor to Jeanette, enclosing five photographs, received July 2, 1934, hoping for a reunion with Jeanette; 8. Jeanette and Heinrich to Victor, July 4–5, 1934, inviting him to visit and stay; 9. Victor to Jeanette, received October 6, 1934, reminiscing on their childhood together.

Victor corresponded with his siblings Klara, Rosa, Hella, Paul, and their spouses, he sent photographs of himself, and they corresponded with him. These letters were passed around the siblings, and some of the exchanges are reported in Heinrich’s diary. Only one letter to Klara (OJ 14/9, [1]) and one to Paul (OJ 14/9, [2]) survive, from 1925. One photographic portrait of him is preserved as OJ 72/21, dated “Spring 1926”.

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