Overview
- Collection Summary
- A collection of twenty reels of 16mm film dating from 1936 to 1943 illustrating the daily life of a prominent Austrian family named Regenstreif and Illich. The films were taken under the name Maexie. Ellen (Maexie) Rose Regenstreif Illich (1901-1965) came from a family of converted Sephardic Jews who had settled in Germany. Her industrialist father, Fritz (Pucki) Regenstreif (1868-1941), had a lumber business in Bosnia and owned an Art Nouveau villa on the outskirts of Vienna in Pötzleinsdorf built by Friedrich Ohmann. Piero Ilic (1890-1942) came from a landed family in Dalmatia, Yugoslavia with property in Split and extensive wine and olive oil producing estates on the island of Brac. Ellen and Piero married in 1925 and established a home in Split. There was a resurgence of anti-foreign and anti-Jewish sentiment in Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav government made claims against her father as a landowner in Bosnia at the International Court in the Hague, so in 1932, Ellen returned to her father's villa in Vienna with their three children: Ivan (1926-2002), Michael (Micha) (b. 1928), and Alexander (Sascha) (1928-2009). Piero died of natural causes in Split in July 1942 (the boys never saw their father after they moved to Vienna). After the death of Fritz Regenstreif on May 8, 1941, the splendid home was taken by the Nazis in a forced sale, and Maexie moved into a pension in Vienna with the children. In Nazi Austria, Maexie was considered an ethnic Jew although she was a baptized Christian, and the children were classified as half-Jewish. In 1942, they made their way to Florence by way of Split, where they lived for three months. The films were kept in a wooden cabinet in the basement of Sascha's New York home from 1961 to 2006, when they were preserved by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
- Credit
- US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Yvonne Illich
Administrative Notes
- Film Source
- Yvonne Illich
Browse 18 Items In This Collection
Illich family activities in 1937
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1242 | Film ID: 2911
Theatrical revue staged by Illich family and friends
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1244 | Film ID: 2912
Villa Regenstreif in Vienna
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1245 | Film ID: 2912
Illich family activities in 1941 to 1942 including forced sale of villa
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1249 | Film ID: 2913
Vienna tourist sites
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1251 | Film ID: 2913
Illich family escapes to Florence, 1943
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1252 | Film ID: 2913
Illich family visits Bad Gastein, 1936
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1253 | Film ID: 2914
Illich family visits Bad Gastein, 1936
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1254 | Film ID: 2914
Illich family visits Bad Gastein, 1937
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1255 | Film ID: 2914
Illich family visits the Dolomites, 1937
Film | RG Number: RG-60.1256 | Film ID: 2914
- Record last modified:
- 2022-07-28 21:57:02
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1000057