Gus Gellmann

Gustav Benno Gellmann, was born in Vienna, Austria on May 5, 1908. He was the son of Juda Gellmann and Gusta Horowitz. Juda was born on January 20, 1874 and died on October 20, 1937 in Suchostav, Kiev, now part of Ukraine,

My Father's parents were married on March 16, 1899. His Father was in the factoring business. He bought things on credit and then rode his bike on Sundays to other districts in Vienna to collect payments from customers.

My Father had four sisters, Anna (born on December 23, 1899), Regina, born on April 26, 1901 and died on September 3, 1942), Norma (born on October 9, 1902) and Theresia born on August 11,1904.

My Father's Mother, Gusta, died giving birth to my Father on May 5, 1908.

My Grandfather remarried on August 10, 1913, to Perl Brodheim (born on April 13, 1882). She was from Lemberg, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire - today it is called Lvov). Her Father's name was Daniel Brodheim and her Mother's name was Ruchel Silberstein. My Grandfather, Juda and his new wife, Perl, gave birth to three sons, Dagobert (born on August 9, 1914 and died on July 15, 1977), Joseph Rudolph (born on July 4, 1966 - died on January 26, 2003), and Eduard Karl (born on April 21, 1918 and died on June 13, 1994).

My Father was mostly brought up by his sisters and missed having a Mother. He was in Zagreb on vacation when his family told him not to come back to Vienna but to go straight to the U.S.A. to his cousins in Yonkers, NY . He left Zagreb on July 19, 1939 and arrived in the U.S.A. shortly thereafter.

He met my Mother, Lisbeth Glogau, in New York City at the Viennese Cafe and they got married on September 7, 1941. After several years, he started a glove factory in Yonkers, the Philippines and San Salvador - he was quite savvy and he became a leader at our synagogue in Yonkers and at the JCC, always fundraising.

Of my Father's sisters, the oldest, Anna, left Vienna and moved to Israel with her husband and two children (who are now 89(Sahava) and 90 (Haim) years old).

The next sister, Regina, had a husband (Mendel Horowitz) and two
daughters (Gertrude and Ilsa). Regina, Mendel and Ilsa escaped to Antwerp, Belgium and Gertrude went to England on a Kindertransport in 1939.

Gertrude was eventually adopted by a family in Liverpool and then moved to Southport. Ilsa drowned and was buried in an empty lot in Herk-de-Stad, a small town in Antwerp. Years later, a Postman mentioned to a Jewish man living there that there was a Jewish gravestone in the town's cemetery. The Jewish man couldn't believe that a Jew would be buried in a non-Jewish cemetery. The Postman took him to the grave and saw the small monument engraved in Flemish topped with a Magen David dated June 19, 1941 and it bore the name Ilsa Horowitz who died at age 14.

The Jewish man's family thought that Ilsa's family had intentionally buried her there and hoped to move her to a Jewish cemetery after the war. But, her parents were caught by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz where they died on September 3, 1942.

Several Rabbis tried to figure out how Ilsa got there and after doing a lot of research and finding her sister Gertrude in Southport (having a different last name), they were able to get her permission to remove her remains to a Jewish resting place in Putte, Belgium. Gertrude was very emotional when finding out what happened to her family - she didn't know until that phone call and was very grateful. Apparently, in the presence of rabbis, community leaders, close to a thousand men, women and children of all ages, Ilsa Horowitz was paid her final tribute and laid to rest among her people. This emotional story is a chapter in a book called "Echoes of the Maggid" by Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn and the chapter is called "Reunited".

At the end of the story they wrote "When people comfort mourners they say, May the Omnipresent One comfort you. Perhaps on that day in Putte, the expression, could have been given its other meaning, place: may this place comfort you, for surely there was consolation that day for the souls of that child and her martyred parents - and for her living sister - as she came to rest in a special place, reunited with her family - the Jewish nation."

My Father's third sister, Norma, also escaped to Antwerp with her two-year old son, Thomas. Her husband was sent to Auschwitz and was killed. She worked as a cook and put her two-year old son (who had platinum hair) into a creche (convent) where Nuns hid him and kept him safe from 1942-1944. My Aunt Norma couldn't see him during that time. In 1947, they went to Galveston, TX where they were reunited with two of my Uncles and brought to New York. My cousin Thomas married Ellen , had a daughter Michelle and became a psychiatrist and settled in Omaha, NE and died in 2017.

The fourth sister, Theresia also went to Antwerp and came to the U.S. around 1947 - she married Dr. George Recht (from Vienna) and had no children.

In 1939, my three Uncles, Dagoberg, Joseph Rudolph and Eduard went to Antwerp and Eduard was caught by the Nazis and sent back to Vienna. His two sisters, Norma and Theresia went back to Vienna and had him released by producing U.S. papers and affidavits and the Uncles were able to go to New York.

Dagoberg and Eduard became tailors but never married and had no children. Joseph Rudolph became a furrier and married Hanny Thon who was the boss's daughter. They married in 1941 and had one child, Phyllis Gellmann Fleisch.