Boske Grandma grew up hearing that that her mother, Roza MAHLER, was a cousin of  the famous Czech composer Gustav MAHLER.  I began my Mahler genealogy thinking I would quickly link up to the main Gustav MAHLER genealogy written up in Henri de La Grange's book MAHLER^[2] and based on research by Professor Rychetsky of the MAHLER museum.  And yet after 10 years of research, this elusive connection seems unlikely and is only hinted at Roza and her sons Dezso's musical talents.  

Instead I have a little story to tell which I like to call:

A Tale of Two Bakers

The Baker of Transylvannia

Public records from Margitta in Bihar County, Hungary (which is now Marghita, Romania) begin the story of Roza's parents:  the baker Jozsef MAHLER (b. abt. 1831) and his wife Sara MANDELBAUM (b. abt. 1843). After their marriage in Margitta they got into the baby business and had several children including Jakab (1862), Wilmos (1864), Sandor (1866), Kati (1868) and my great-grandmother Roza (1870).

Sometime between 1870 and 1873, the baker Jozsef MAHLER moved his family to the thriving town of Nagyvarad (now Oradea, Romania) also in Bihar County.  In Nagyvarad, Jozsef and Sara had several more children including Hirsch Isias (1873), Resi (1875), Minna (1878), Franczika (1880), Terez (1881) and Emilie (1883).

Nagyvarad Temple records show Jozsef MAHLER involved in the Nagyvarad Orthodox community of Rabbi Landesberg and attending the great Synagogue (which I believe is the only one of Oradea's 4 temples to survive the destruction of the Holocaust).  In 1894, Jozsef's daughter Roza married my great grandfather the printer Jakab SIMON in a marriage which, according to Boske, was boycotted by most of the SIMON family who felt the MAHLERs were too blue-collar. Boske's account must be incorrect as Abraham Simon was a witness at Jakab and Roza's wedding. Jozsef MAHLER, on the other hand, maintained good relations with his son-in-law Jakab SIMON and was named Godfather when Roza's second son Deszo destined to be a violinist was born in 1887. Jozsef's family seemed to thrive in Nagyvarad, but sometime before the Treaty of Versailles annexed Transylvania to Romania most of Jozsef MAHLER's children had moved to Budapest including his son Sandor and his daughter Franczika.  Yet other's had their sites set for America.  

My grandmother Boske came to this country in 1957 just after the Hungarian Revolution when my own parents came.  After she arrived she stayed in L.A. for a while and then she went to live by the families of her aunts Terez and Mili MAHLER in New York just before she married her second husband Imre MOHOS in 1958.  Boske told me the story about how Roza's sisters had come to America at the beginning of the 20th century and had gotten married in New York.  But over time Boske lost contact with the MAHLER aunts. 

The Baker of Brooklyn

Like so many immigrant stories in America, this one begins at Ellis Island, when I ran a check for Aunt Terez and Aunt Mili in Ellis Island's records. Bingo!  In 1903, I find Therse MAHLER (24) crossing the Atlantic on the Pennsylvania traveling with ßher are her father Josef (72), her mother Saly (60) and her sister Fanny (18).  Scribbled in the notes section of the Pennsylvania's ships manifest was an address of Jozsef's brother, a man whose life unfolded into the second act of this play.

Adolph MAHLER (b. 1859) was a young man of 21 years of age when he left his parents Gyula MAHLER and Sadi WOLF in Hungary to make his fortune in America in 1880.  Like his brother Jozsef who was 28 years older than him, Adolph had experience working in a baker's shop.  Once he arrived in Manhattan, he got a job with Swiss Baker Henry ERNST who let him board with his family.  In ERNST's bakery, Adolph worked along side other German and central European immigrates. He seemed to have no trouble finding another recent Hungarian immigrant, Hannah KESTENBAUM (b. 1860), to marry the following year.. By 1884, the couple had a baby boy who they named Isadore.  By 1891, Adoph applies for citizenship brining along his saloon keeper to act as a witness for him.  By 1900, we find the family comfortably installed in Manhattan where the son attended school.

Things must have been going pretty well for Adolph.  So well that he came up with a plan to move his whole family from the old country to the land of opportunity.  Perhaps he sensed the dark clouds of war and hunger forming over Hungary.

In 1902 he goes to Hungary and convinces his brother Jozsef to join his immigration plan and brings Jozsef's daughter Emilie (19) [aka Aunt Mili] back with him to seal the deal.  The following year Jozsef, Sali, Terez and Fany with $80 make the migration.  Adolph returns to Hungary one more time to escort back some other relatives, Regina and Jolan ZITRON.  On the steamer back, Adolph and his wife upgrade to a cabin, another sign of his rising star.

What happens next to Jozsef MAHLER's family is a little unclear.  Therese and the ZITRON's stay on and get citizenship.  Therese and Millie get married and settle down. Maybe another son, Sandor made  it to New York before returning to Budapest.  By 1908, Jozsef and Sara Mahler have returned to Budapest and are living on Isabella Street. Jozsef who was already 72 when he made the voyage dies before 1916.   The widow Sara MANDELBAUM survives long enough to see the death of her grandson's Paul SIMON (1916) and Jeno MAHLER (1917), victims of World War before she dies in Budapest in 1924. Fanny is back in Budapest in 1909 marrying Samuel STEINER (and later marries Samuel Vargo in 1920).

Boske Grandma's account fills in some of the details.  She had never met her grandfather Jozsef, but she remembers that her MAHLER grandmother (Sara MANDELBAUM) came to live with them.  She had been living with her sons in Hungary, but she was not happy because their wives didn't cook kosher food. Boske's father, Jakab SIMON told her to come live with them and he bought her a set of pots to cook her own kosher food in as she liked.  After that she was happy,  She dies in Kispest at the age of 84 in 1924.  As for Fany, Boske's aunt Francisca MAHLER,is the stunning woman in the foxtail wrap in the photograph Boske gave me.  Francisca married George [sic] STEINER who died in the labor camps with her following just after the war.  According to Boske, the MAHLERs also intended to bring the rest of the family out from Hungary and had sent about $300 to pay for the trip.  The money was deposited in a bank account in Hungary, but was wiped out by hyperinflation (most likely around the time of WWI).

What happened to Jozsef MAHLERs descendants in Budapest is a mystery. Reader's with clues contact plinhardt@aol.com.  

Nonetheless,  the story of Adoph, the Baker of Brooklyn, continues.  By 1920(?), Adolph has moved to Brooklyn and owns his won bakery.  Initially, his son Isidor follows in his father's footsteps and becomes a baker.  In 1904, he marries a Russian immigrant named Anna Ledermann in Manhattan.  Isidor becomes a salesman and has a thriving family with Anna.  But then, in 1921 tragedy strikes.  Isidor checks himself into the People's Hospital of Manhattan with a hernia, perhaps from lugging his heavy sales samples.  Today it would be an outpatient procedure, but in those days they liked to keep the patient around for a few days after an operation.  To make a long story short, he died of pneumonia in hospital after his  hernia operation.  Izidor's family erect a stunning magnificent tombstone in Brooklyn's Washington Cemetery  in the shape of a giant tree with a scroll on it which reads: "Izidor J. MAHLER, beloved husband and our beloved father - dates: Gone bug not forgotten."  Stone's placed at his grave recently atest that he indeed has not been forgotten.

With the loss of his only son, Adolph's life began to crumble.  Some time in the 1920's his wife Hannah dies too.  Something happens to his mind and he gets checked into the psychiatric hospital for New York's desolate.  The market crashes in 1929.  America is no longer the land of opportunity that it once was.  The city of New York construct a hospital on Ward's Island for the needy adjacent to Ellis Island.  And it is here that in 1930, Adolph finds himself an inmate in this institution.  He has come full circle.  He spends his last days right next to that gateway of opportunity, Ellis Island, the spirit of which so much invigorated his life.  With this, Adolph MAHLER, whose ambition brought opportunity and the American dream to so many of his family members, disappears from the public record.

More than 20 years after my quest began, DNA testing has revealed the mystery of what happened to Roza Mahler's sisters Terez and Emilie. Terez who went by the name Theresa married Marton KESTENBAUM not too long after she arrive din New York with her parents in 1903. Marton is the son of Ignatz KESTENBAUM who traveled on the boat with Uncle Adolf and Emilie in 1902. Ignatz is the half brother of Adolf's wife Hani KESTENBAUM. Adolf marrying his niece Theresa to his wife's nephew Martin is perhaps an arranged marriage. It is fruitful. They have about 8 children: David (1905), Alice (1906), Rose (1906), Gussie (1907?), Dorothy (1909), Joseph (1910), Gussy (1913?), Helen (1915), Williman (1921). Theresa dies in 1947 so my grandmother must have visited with her descendants in 1958.

The other daughter Emilie MAHLER is living with her sister Theresa and her husband Martin Kestenbaum in the 1905 New York Census. She returns to Budapest to visit her father and then comes back to New York in 1908. In 1909, she marries the Italian barber Gaetano Romeo. This apparently causes a family scandal as Gaetano is not Jewish. Gaetano changes his name to Thomas ROSSI and then ROSS. They have 3 children: Josephine (1910), Ruth (1912) and Joseph (1913).

Children of Jozsef MAHLER & Sara MANDELBAUM

Children of Roza MAHLER and Jakab SIMON

Origin of the Name

Early documents on MAHLER from Marghita Romania, use the variant spelling Maler.  Gustav Mahler bioliographer Henri de la Grange proposes the following etymology for the name MAHLER: "Two different etymologies have been suggested: Meller, Mahler, Miller may be derived from Muller (Miller) or Mahler (painter; in fact, the derivation almost certainly comes from the Czechoslovakian and Hungarian, whose "a" vowel sound is very short, rather like "o"; thus Mohel (Circumciser) has become not only Mahler (at first spelled Mohler or Moller) but also Moll, Mohl, Mollling, etc. This explanation seems the most likely, since several families were registered in the Csaslau district under the name of Mohler or Moller (Judenfamilien-bucher, Csaslau)."^[2]

The Gustav MAHLER Family

While my grandmother was always told that her mother was a first cousin to Gustav MAHLER, no actual connection between Roza MAHLER and Gustav MAHLER has yet to be established. Gustav's father Bernard (1827-1889) did have a brother Jozsef (also born in 1830) but he was married and producing children at the same time as Roza's father. Prof. Rychetsky of the MAHLER museum feels it more likely that Roza is connected to Bernard's brother Leopold (1829) whose history is unaccounted for, but this could only be true if Roza's father Jozsef (b. abt. 1831) was the same person as Leopold. (Since the 1905 Ellis Island ships manifest lists the parents of Josef's brother Adolph as being Hungarian, it seems unlikely that Josef is the same person as Leopold.  Perhaps Gustav was a 2nd (not 1st) cousin to Roza.

Gustav MAHLER Genealogy: Gustav MAHLER's family history and genealogy is printed in MAHLER, vol I, Henri de La Grange, Doubleday and Co, 1973 based on research done by Professor Rychetsky of the MAHLER Museum. The following information is liberally quoted from La Grange's work.

Gustav MAHLER's parents were Bernard MAHLER (Lipnice, 1827- Iglau, 1888) and Marie HERMAN (Ledec 1837 - Jihlava 1888). Bernard's parents were Simon MAHLER (Kalischt 1793) and Maria BONDY (Lipnice 1805 - Lipnice 1883). If my great grandmother Roza MAHLER was a first cousin of Gustav's, Simon MAHLER & Maria BONDY would be her grandparents as well. Simon's parents were Bernard MAHLER (Kalischt 1750 - 1812) and Ludmila (Barbara) LUSTIG. The elder Bernard's parents were Abraham Jakub MAHLER (Kalischt 1720 - Kalischt 1800) and his wife Anna. Abraham's father was Jakub (b. Kalischt 1690). Maria BONDY's parents were Abraham BONDY (1767-1843) and Anna Marie MEISL (Ronov). Abraham's parents were Bernard BONDY and Sara Rosine (Lipnice). Bernard's parents were Wolf and Teresie BONDY. Anna Marie MEISL's parents were Marek and Anna MAISEL. Ludmila LUSTIG's parents were Joseph and Barbara LUSTIG.^[6]

Oldest Known Ancestor: 

The Gustav MAHLER line can be traced back to MAHLER Abraham, a merchant and synagogue singer, the first MAHLER to take that name.^[1] Most Jews did not have fixed hereditary surnames until the early 19th century. Before that, people were known only by their first name and a patronymic, i.e. their father's given name, e.g. "Yaacov ben Shmuel", meaning "Yaacov the son of Shmuel". Jews were required to take surnames at various times: Austrian Empire (1787)^[3].

MAHLER, vol I, pg. 5: "The earliest documents mentioning Simon Mahler date from 1832 , later than the birth of his son Bernhard, the composer's father. The archives of Lipnitz contain documents proving that he was expelled from this town, doubtless because he had been living there without official permission. Four years later he had settled in Kalischt, and the following year there was an exchange of letters regarding his departure from this town. Simon managed to get this second expulsion suspended, though perhaps only temporarily. Unfortunately only the file numbers of this correspondence exist. The documents themselves have disappeared. By then, Simon was married to Maria Bondy, daughter of Abraham Bondy, (who was the manager of a tavern and distillery in Kalischt after having been in Lipnitz, (Lipnice) a merchant and 'Bestandjude", a Jew and lessee of land and of an inn or tavern), and of Sara Anna Meisl, daughter of Abraham Meisl of Ronow." (Picture of Marie BONDY MAHLER on pg. 287.)^[2] According to Dave Bondy of England, the BONDY family is a prominent Jewish Prague family that goes back to Rabbi Israel BONDY (unverified).^[4]

Geographic Origin: The Gustav MAHLER family was from Bohemia, Czech (previously part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Earliest records of Gustav's grandfather Simon MAHLER show him expelled from Lipnitz in 1832 from which he moved to a small town called Kalischt near Iglau (now Jihlava, Czech) where the MAHLER family was later to run the local tavern^[3]. "No one knows exactly when Jews first arrived in the Czech lands, but they came from Rome in the south and from Byzantium [Istanbul] in the southeast. They are mentioned by various Czech chroniclers as inhabiting the city of Prague since the latter part of the tenth centruy and settling in other Czech towns during the three centuries that followed."^[5]