Altstadt family collection
Extent and Medium
7 boxes & 2 photo albums
Biographical History
The three families in the collection – the Altstadts, the Picks and the Mayers – are all related through Clara Altstadt and her mother Irma Mayer. Irma was born in the mid-1860s to David and Betty Pick. She had two elder brothers, Wilhelm and Gyula. The family seem to have been successful businessmen based in Hungary, Wilhelm living in in Steinamanger (Szombathely) and Gyula in Ozora and later Budapest; Betty and Irma apparently lived in Steinamanger with Wilhelm.
In 1890 Irma Pick married Jacques Mayer. He was the son of Albert Mayer, who worked in textiles in Prossnitz (Prostějov), Moravia. Irma settled in Prossnitz and had two children with Jacques – Albert and Klara.
Klara married Moritz Altstadt in October 1918. He was orginally from Lwóv (now, L’viv) and had moved to Vienna to work in the shoe business; eventually he set up what would become the second-largest shoe manufacturer in Austria. They settled in Vienna, although Klara ran a property rentals business in Prossnitz, and had two children, George and Sylvia.
In summer 1938, the Altstadts immigrated to Lenzie, Scotland, to escape the Nazis. Klara became Clara. Moritz established two new businesses in Scotland, in which Clara and George both worked. Moritz died in 1949. Clara continued to rent out properties on the continent and later moved to Jersey, with George accompanying her. Sylvia settled in Belgium. Clara died in 1994, George in 2006 and Sylvia in 2018.
Acquisition
Donated 11.11.2021
Donor: Sebastien Paraskevas
Scope and Content
The collection contains the personal and business papers of Clara and Moritz Altstadt. The business papers represent about half the entire collection. They cover the Altstadts' business interests in interwar and postwar Austria and Czechoslovakia (the Aeterna shoe company and Clara Altstadt’s property rental business) and those set up after immigrating to Scotland (the Scottish Shoe Company and Macloritex). These materials, alongside the considerable correspondence with lawyers and banks, give an insight into the expropriation of Jewish property by the Nazi and Communist regimes, as well as the Altstadt’s attempts to move their wealth with them from Austria and then regain their property after the war.
The Altstadt private papers mainly consist of family correspondence, including letters to and from Clara and Moritz's children, George and Sylvia. The collection also includes photographs of the four Altstadts.
In addition there are private letters, as well as some documents and photographs, belonging to the Mayers and the Picks, the families of Clara Altstadt’s father and mother respectively; the larger part of these are letters to or from Irma Mayer, Clara’s mother.
Conditions Governing Access
Open
Subjects
- Migration
- Family documents [doc]
- Correspondence
Places
- Scotland
- Austria
- Occupied Austria [1945-1955]
- Czechoslovakia [1918-1992]
- Austro-Hungarian Empire [1867-1918]