Leon and Yitzhak Aschkenasy's testimonies on Yad Vashem

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I went on a wild goose chase yesterday as a result of
wrong information in a posting entitled re: Austria
Vienna, Poland and Hungary. However, it has led to
some interesting genealogy of one ASCHKENASY family of
Vienna and a wider knowledge on the origins this
family and its forebears. I followed the amazing life
of the famous Viennese-born actor Leon ASKIN in
http://www.askin.at/e_k01.htm

As a result of clues in this URL, I found Leon's
parents Samuel and Malvine on POT on Yad Vashem which
Leon filled in on 4.10.1980 when he lived in No XXX
Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills, California, 90210
[perhaps he had lived there whilst making films with
Billy Wilder?]. His mother was born in Vienna on 17
November 1878, and her father was Isidore SUSMAN.

Malvine has another POT in Hebrew, by a *daughter*
Yitzhak ASCHKENASY. The date of birth is 17 November
1880 and her mother is named as Amalia. The submitter
must be a brother of Leon.

And believe it or not, there is another POT filled in
by Leon with the date of birth given as 17 Nov 1881
and here we read Malvine's mother was Amalia HAUSER
who died 1918 and that Isidore died in 1914. This has
a nice photograph and the chilling typed statement of
Leon as told him by the Red Cross: "either gassed or
burnt in the ovens of Minsk or Lublin".

I read that Leon's father Samuel, who was an ardent
socialist, was most disillusioned and became a very
observant Jew. Leon also wrote two POTs for his father
on which you can see the photograph of this handsome
man. Samuel was also born in Vienna on 2 August 1874
and his father was Leib ASCHKENASY. Samuel's mother's
[Mrs Leib!] maiden name - was written by Leon in pen
as an after-thought; at first I read it as CRAYKES?

More research in Vienna databases and Yad Vashem
assured me that it was CZACZKES. To my great surprise,
I found many CZACZKES victims from Vienna. They had
been born in Tarnopol and other Galician towns as well
as Czernowitz [Bukowina].

Brother Yitzhak also provided a POT for his father on
16.1.1955 when he was living at No XX Zahal St.,
Giv'atayim, Israel.

Leon further provided a POT for his aunt Elsa [nee
KOHN] ASCHKENASY married to Moritz, who must have been
a brother of Samuel. Another was for his cousin Edith
ASCHKENASY born 16 November 1907. Edith's birthday was
one day before Leon's mother's. Leon and cousin Edith
were born only a few weeks apart - that is why I am
sure he remembered her birthday precisely.

So from the evidence we have, the ASKIN/ASCHKENASY
family, established in Vienna for a long time, was
from Galicia and/or perhaps Bukowina. If you have
links to Galician/Bukowina and/or Polish ASCHKENASY,
CZACZKES, SUSSMANN and HAUSER families, I advise you
to type in these names and *Vienna* as a location and
you may sadly find unexpected links; some testimony
submitters should be relatively easy to locate. We
remember all these tragic victims here today.

Leon ASKIN and his brother Yitzhak ASCHKENASY would I
am sure be amused and gratified to know that a
careless posting, led serendipitously to an appraisal
of their tragic family history on the Jewishgen
Discussion Group.

Celia Male [U.K.]

Footnote: My thanks as always to Uri Meretz [Israel]
for the Hebrew translations on the POT.

From the URL you read that Leon returned to Vienna,
remarried aged 95 and only died in June last year,
aged 98. He is now buried in an honour grave in the
Zentralfriedhof, Vienna.
---
Sender: Celia Male <celiamale@xxxxxxxxx>
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