The SALZBERGER Family Genealogy Page

Religion/Geographic Origin/Origin of Name

Extracts from the memoirs of Josef AMI SALZBERGER give great insite into the orgins of the SALZBERGER family. Izsak SALZBERGER was a sephardic Jew who was born in Pasika near Munkachevo, Ukraine (Munkacs). The SALZBERGERs were "land Jews" (property managers) for the Graf von Schönborn, an Austrian aristocratic family. Presumably, the Empress gave the Graf an land grant (bounty to a loyal feudal lord) in the Ukraine (then Munkacs, Hungary). The Graf built a hunting lodge in Pasika (aka Paszika), near Munkacs and apparently recruited some his "land Jews" from his Austrian estates to harvest lumber and grow grapes for wine. Josef AMI believes they were recruited from Schoenborn estates in Salzburg, Austria (but more likely they were from the Schoenborn's primary castle in Bavaria as I can't find a Schoenborn castle in Salzburg). Josef's theory is that the name SALZBERGER literally means from SALZBURG. Austrian Jews were required to adopt Germanic surnames in 1787 and did often adopt the name of the location from which they came. However, SALZBERG literally means "Salt Mountain" whereas Salzburg means "Salt Castle" so the names are not exactly synonymous. According to Josef, when the Jews got their civil rights in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the royal family and the aristocratic families gave honor titles to their yard Jews. The honor title that was given to the Salzbergers in the area of Munkacevo disappeared and was erased by unknown reasons, but there were "Von SALZBERGERs" in the areas of the Schönborn family to whom honor titles are kept today (Chernovich, Bukovina). If Josef is correct that the SALZBERGERs were Sephardic Jews, they were probably evicted from Spain around 1492 before settling later in Salzburg, Austria.

Historic Context

Some historic background information from Genealogy.net gives a picture of the Schoenborn effort to repopulate Munakcs: "The [Karpatho-Ukraine] area remained a poor, isolated backwater that suffered terribly from warfare. When the endemic fighting ceased in the early 18th century, the area was a wasteland. For instance, in 1720, count Schoenborn owned 1,340 km2 in Bereg Komitat, including 5 small cities and 180 villages--but 80 of these had not one inhabitant left. Over the centuries, the few Germans had been killed, or assimilated into the Slavic or Magyar population, leaving traces only in local family names (the Germans of Visk became Magyars, though keeping surnames such as Weiss, Schwartz, Gruenberg), and the local dialect, such as in fris^tikowaty, to take breakfast, from German fruehstuecken. The Schoenborns recruited new settlers, mostly from Franconia in Bavaria, where the family had holdings, too, but also the German-speaking Eastern Lorraine/Lothringen (Dory family, notably).The Schoenborns recruited new settlers until 1880...In the Theresiental, beginning with 1775, the Habsburg monarchs settled the nearly empty virgin forests with people from various ethnic groups, including Germans.The first Germans were woodcutters and charcoal-makers from the Salzkammergut region in Upper Austria, settled in Deutsch-Mokra (Mokra Nemecke, today Komsomolsk), to provide fuel for the salt-factory at Marmaros-Sziget." The Schoenborn's definitely had a castle in Munkacs and had wine and beer brewery operations in the area. The Munkachevo Brewery is still in operation today.

The city of Munkacs changed hands several times between the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Slavs (Hungary: 895-1920; Czechoslovakia: 1920-1938; Hungary: 1938-1945; Soviet Union: 1945-1992(?); Munkachevo, Ukraine 1992(?)- present).

Oldest Known Ancestor

Izsak SALZBERGER (b. 1835) of Pasika, near Munkacs whose wife was named Ceril Cila BERGER aka Sara (b. 1840) is the grand patriarch of the SALZBERGER clan. Izsak was a yard Jew for the Graf von Schobrun of Austria. Izsak harvasted lumber for fuel from the Graf's forests and grew grapes for wine. Izsak didn't like friends to drafted into the Imperial armies and, for a fee, would provide medical documetation to exclude Jewish men from military service in the Austrian Army. If not for obvious reasons, Orthodox Jews did not want to serve in the army because the army did not provide kosher food. Izsak's partner was Dr. Fedak of Bereszasz (whose daughter Sari was a famous actress in Budapest). By 1898, Izsak was a wine agent in Munkacs. At the time of my great grandmother Viktoria SALZBERGER's premature death in 1914, Izsak may have been living at Kertalja utca 11 in Munkacs.

Izsak and Cila sired at least 9 children including my great grandmother: Eliezer, Hani, Jeno, Jozsef, Adolf, Fani, Viktoria, Laye and Lenke. My grandmother and several other SALZBERGER's were obviously named after their grandmother Izsak's wife, Cila.

Children of Izsak and Cila SALZBERGER

(1) Eliezer SALZBERGER (b. 1876) married Peszl FARBENBLUM and had 7 children. Four died in Auschwitz. The other three changed their name to AMI and moved to Israel.

(2) Hani Deborah SALZBERGER (abt. 1864) married Nathan Nute Shalom HARTMANN of Huzst and had 7 children. The parents and 6 of their 7 offsprings were victims of the Holocaust. The only survivor was Hershu HARTMANN who had married his SALZBERGER cousin, Sarolta ZOREF, and had two children. Sadly, their two children died in the camps. Shortly after the were liberated at the end of the war, Hershu ran into his niece, by chance on the streets of Bratislava. Hershu, Sari, his niece and two ZOREF aunts moved to Santiago, Chile to begin live anew. Hershu and Sari had another child who now lives in Vancouver with his family. The niece later moved to Israel where her two brothers lived. Now, a dozen great, great grandchildren of the Hani SALZBERGER live in Israel.

(3) Jeno SALZBERGER (1882), husband of Jolanka, had a single son name Istvan aka Pista. Pista changed his name to Stephan NADOR and moved (probably in 1956) to Basel, Switzerland where he worked in the banking industry. He was married with no children and spoke 7 languages. I met Stephan in 1978 when I was a student in France. He actually began my SALZBERGER family tree by sketching Izsak's and Cila's names on a paper napkin.

(4) Jozsef SALZBERGER, husband of Jolan and father of 5 children of which 2 survived WWII. One son, Nandor Nancsi Hernando SALZBERGER (1907) managed to leave Hungary before the borders closed. In France, he met a pretty French nurse, married her and moved to Caracas, Venezuela where he was very successful. His sons were raised in Caracas as Roman Catholics. One son lives in Caracas the other lives in New York. Nandor's sister, Sarolta Sari Charlotte SALZBERGER was separated from her husband Eugene Janos BRAUN in the war. The story that she and her son Leo Paul Braun survived the Nazi round-ups in Munkacs because she had taken him to Switzerland to see an eye specialist is not true. However, she did use stories like that as a pretext when she traveled. Her husband, Eugene BRAUN, had gone ahead to France to get immigration papers for his family. After a long wait, the papers arrived too late the day the Hungarian borders were sealed. After the fall of Paris, BRAUN was sent to the camps. He survived but died shortly after the war a sadly broken man. Sari and her son survived and immigrated to Sidney, Australia where the son now lives. Both sons were baptized as Roman Catholics, however this did not spare Robi from being a victim of the Holocaust.

(5) Adolf SALZBERGER of Sighet, Romania had a son and a daughter of which only the son survived the Holocaust. The son, Emeric, had a gentile wife and died in Israel in 1981. Emeric's son lives in Israel with his wife and children.

(6) Fani SALZBERGER MEISELS (abt. 1866) married Pincus MEISELS who was from Munkacs but moved to the US for an extended period. He returned to Munkacs and married Fani. Pincus died of an epidemic around 1913 and was buried in the Munkacs cemetery. Fani and Pincus had a son, Jeno, and a daughter, Sari. Fani died in Munkacs many years before the Holocaust. Sari, her husband and son died in the Holocaust. Jeno applied to the American consulate telling them the story of his "American" father and was granted a US passport in 1940 thus escaping the Holocaust. Angelizing his name, "Jack" had two daughters in the US who survived him and are living in New York.

(7) Viktoria SALZBERGER FISCHMANN (abt. 1876) was my grandmother Cila's mother who married my great grandfather, Samuel FISCHMANN and lived in Beregszasz (now Beregovo, Ukraine) with her 4 children. Viktoria was very pious and very sickly. A short autobiography Cila wrote when she was 83 describes her mothers death: "In September 1914, my parents took my two brothers, my sister and myself to a town very close to the Russian border [Munkacs] to visit my [SALZBERGER] grandparents during Jewish high holidays, Sukus, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippor. We went to temple and prayed for 10 days and the last day we fasted for 24 hours and prayed for our sins of the past year. Then we celebrated the New Year or Yom Kippor, the highest holy day. While we were visiting relatives, my mother became very sick and she died. She was 38 years old. As a 7 year old girl, I saw my mother dying and heard her loud crying. My brother cried and cried. Later we went back to Grandpa's house and I saw them open the casket. According to the Jewish religion she had to be buried before sundown. I did not understand it all but I cried and cried." The death of her mother profoundly effected Cila all her life. Of the four children, the Adolf immigrated to the US in 1939 and had 2 grandchildren (1 adopted), Sari moved to Israel and had many descendants; Cila and her family in escaped and moved to California in the 1956 Hungarian revolution, and Marcel's family was killed in the Holocaust.

(8) Laye SALZBERGER married Yedel ZOREF and was the mother of Sarolta ZOREF who married her first cousin Hershu HARTMANN (see #2 above).

(9) Lenke SALZBERGER KRAUS married a man named KRAUS and lived and died in Munkacs with no children.