Ungar, Hammerschlag and Breuer family collection

Margaret Ungar (Gretl, 1894-1985) was born Margarethe Hammerschlag in Vienna to Paul Hammerschlag and Bertha Breuer Hammerschlag. She had two sisters: Elisabeth (Lilli, 1895-1994) and Helene (Helli, 1899-1968). Elisabeth Hammerschlag married Rudi Duschnitz and had son Toni. Helene Hammerschlag married Sebastian Isepp and had daughter Konstanze and son Martin. Margaret married Felix Ungar (1887-1970) and had three daughters: Elizabeth (Liesl, 1920-1985), Andrea (Andy, 1923-1996), and Marlene (Maria, (1928-2022). Felix Ungar was a World War I veteran, inherited his family’s mineral water business (Mattoni-Ungar), and also became a managing partner in Gösser Bier. His parents were Samuel (d. 1912) and Jenny Ungar (d. 1937), and his maternal grandparents were Pheobus (1831-1910) and Hani Schmelkes (d. 1921). Margaret and Felix lived with their daughters in an apartment house shared among Breuer, Hammerschlag, and Isepp relatives. Felix was imprisoned following the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 and was only released after signing over his business. In the fall of 1938, Margaret sent her daughter Marlene to London to stay with her mother Bertha and sister Helene Isepp. She sent her daughters Elizabeth and Andrea to France to stay with her sister Elisabeth Duschnitz. Margaret and Felix immigrated to New York in December 1938, sailing from Boulogne, and sponsored by Herbert Lehman. Marlene, Elizabeth, and Andrea sailed to New York in January 1939 to join their parents. Elizabeth married Charles Beckwith, Andrea married Fred Wilson, and Marlene married Ben Bagdikian. Margaret’s mother Bertha joined the Ungar family in America in 1946.

Bertha Hammerschlag (1870-1962) was born Bertha Breuer in Vienna to Josef Breuer (1842-1926) and Mathilde Altmann Breuer. She had five siblings: Robert, Margaret (Gretl), Lilli, Hans, and Dora. Bertha married lawyer and banker Paul Hammerschlag (1860-1933), son of Samuel Hammerschlag (1826-1904), born in Bohemian Leipa (now Česká Lípa), and of Betty Josephson Hammerschlag (1827-1916) from Berlin. Paul had three siblings: Anna Hammerschlag (1861-1938), who married Rudolf Lichtheim; Albert Hammerschlag (1863-1935); and Emil Hammerschlag (1866-1949), who married Marie (Mitzi) Bardach. Emil, Marie, and their adopted daughter Rosita Gruenberg emigrated to London after the Nazi annexation of Austria. Bertha joined her daughter Helene Isepp in London following the annexation and immigrated to the United States in 1946, joining her daughter Margaret Ungar.

Josef Breuer (1842-1926) was a physician and physiologist and a colleague of Sigmund Freud. He and his wife Mathilde Altmann Breuer had six children: Robert, Bertha, Margaret (Gretl), Lilli, Hans, and Dora. Hans and his wife Kaethe had a son called Gustl. Gretl (married name Schiff) perished at Theresienstadt in 1942. Gretl’s daughter Hanna Schiff was also deported and perished during the Holocaust. Dora Breuer died by suicide in 1942 to avoid deportation.