What happened to Maria's mom?
I know her dad died from his illness shortly after Maria escaped, but whatever happened to her mom? I know she eventually died, but how? Was she killed by the Nazis? I can't find this information on the google.
shareShe survived the war and died in 1961. I don't know if she was imprisoned in a concentration camp or not.
There were some other details the movie left out, but I suppose you can't put everything in without having a 6-hour movie. I got the impression from the movie that Maria Altmann was all alone in the world, but Fritz and Maria had four children, who don't get mentioned. (Maybe they wanted to keep their privacy.)
Something else that didn't sink in until long after I left the theater... Ferdinand, who stayed behind, was the brother to Gustav, who escaped. But Gustav's wife Adele was the sister of Therese, Maria's mom. Two brothers had married two sisters!
Anyway, here's Maria's obit from the NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/arts/design/09altmann.html?_r=0
thanks. I wonder if Maria and her mom were ever reunited. I got the impression from the movie that maybe they weren't.
shareI think they must have been reunited.
I did some more digging - Maria Altmann was the youngest of five children and it appears that the rest of the family made it out and resettled to Vancouver Canada, where Maria's mother Therese died in 1961. Vancouver and LA aren't so far apart, so I'd have to think they saw each other many times.
As far as I can remember, none of Maria's siblings were mentioned in any detail.
- Older brother Leopold who, in 1934, rescued a lost skier in the mountains. That lost skier was a nephew of Hitler and ended up being a Gestapo agent. In gratitude for having his life saved, the Gestapo agent looked the other way while Leopold and his family escaped to Switzerland.
- Older brother named Robert who escaped to Vancouver and started a lumber business. Maria's mother escaped as well and went to live with Robert.
- Older sister Luisa who, with her family, was about to be shipped off to the death camps but were kept off the train by a Gestapo agent who apparently had a crush on her for years. They were kept in protective custody until 1945 in what would become Yugoslavia. After the war, Luisa's husband was murdered by the Communists, but she and the rest of her family escaped to Vancouver.
- Older brother Karl/Charles who also made it to Vancouver, but I couldn't turn up his story.
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Could you cite the source? I would love to read more about it.
shareI didn't keep a record of it (although I should have). As I recall, it was on Randol Schoenberg's personal site or the site of his law firm.
Give this one a peek.
http://schoenblog.com/?author=1