A group of friends pose in front of a monument in the garden of the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay, on V-E Day.
Overview
- Caption
- A group of friends pose in front of a monument in the garden of the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay, on V-E Day.
Among those pictured is George Klimt (seated in front, far right). - Date
-
1945 May 07
- Locale
- Bombay, India
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Wendy Lehmann
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Wendy Lehmann
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Anna Valerie ("Vally")Herlinger was born on December 29, 1924 in Vienna, Austria to parents Moritz (b. 1884) and Berta Herlinger. Berta (nee Fuchs) was born in 1891 in Uherski Brod (now in the Czech Republic), the eldest daughter among twelve children. Her father was a leather tanner. When she was thirteen, her mother fell ill and died not long after, leaving Berta to help raise her younger siblings. They were a close family, and when Berta moved to Vienna to find work her younger sister, Mela went with her, followed by other siblings. In Vienna, Berta met and married Moritz Herlinger. Moritz owned a textile and menswear shop in the 15th district of Vienna, where he and his family also lived. Their first child, Herman, was born around 1920. In 1924, Moritz died, leaving Berta with a young son and expecting another child, Vally, who would be born later that year. After Moritz’ death, Berta began running the shop. The business thrived, and by the early 1930s she owned an apartment building in Hitzing where she and her family lived.
Witnessing the rise of Nazism in Austria, Berta began to save money for the family to leave. In 1938, she agreed to allow her eighteen-year-old son Herman to travel illegally with his friends to Belgium, with the plan that Berta, Vally, and Mela would soon follow. However, shortly before the date that they were to leave, Vally became ill with scarlet fever, making travel impossible. Deeply concerned about their situation, Berta wrote to her cousin Tilda Kars, who had left Austria with her husband months earlier for Calcutta. Seeing Tilda’s distress at Berta’s news, Tilda's neighbor, Doreen Barnet, offered to sponsor Berta and her family’s travel to Calcutta and provide them with work when they arrived. The sponsorship covered only Berta and Vally, but Berta planned to send for the rest of her family once she was established there. They left Vienna on April 24, 1939 and travelled by train to Amsterdam. From there, they boarded the Marnix van Sint Aldegonde and sailed to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where they had a weeklong stopover before continuing on to Calcutta on the Isipingo. They arrived on June 8, 1939.
Soon, Tilda was able to secure a sponsorship for Berta’s son Hermann as well, and he arrived at the end of July. He was apprenticed to the photographer Sydney Moses, who had also facilitated the acquisition of his work visa. Other members of Berta’s family were not able to immigrate due to the start of the war. Berta initially worked as a domestic in Calcutta, but later took an apartment in Darjeeling, where she opened a boarding house. Vally was sent to school at the Loretto Convent in Darjeeling. When she finished school, Vally returned to Calcutta and completed a secretarial course, while living with friends and caring for their children. At the end of 1941 she found work with the Lever Brothers, and later moved with the company to Delhi and then to Bombay. Herman worked for a time in Dehra Dunn before joining her in Bombay to work as a salesman in the stationery trade.
By the end of the war, Berta had lost nearly all of her family members. One brother and his wife survived, though their children perished, and one niece managed to immigrate to America. She decided to apply for a visa to the United States, along with her children. Her visa was granted, but her children’s papers were delayed, so in 1947 she travelled alone to Spokane, Washington, where old friends had settled. Later that year, Hermann married Klara Steiner, a Hungarian survivor of Auschwitz. Vally had become engaged to George Klimt, who had also fled Nazi Austria, and they married in London on June 6, 1948. The couple settled in the UK, where Herman and Klara soon joined them. With their visas to the U.S. delayed, both couples stayed in the U.K. where they had children and built lives. Berta joined her children there in 1949, and lived near them until her death in 1976.
- Record last modified:
- 2020-02-14 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1179863
