Who was Tomas Freud?

The Ernst Wolff book collection (Moses Mendelssohn Akademie Halberstadt) comprises more than 4,000 volumes with annotations of more than 200 names of individuals and institutions from Berlin’s Jewish communities. The collection largely consists of contemporary general literature, school books, legal reference books, statutory texts, journals and sheet music.

A Berlin Jew who survived the Shoah in hiding, Ernst Wolff originally acquired the collection after the war ended in 1945. According to the latest research findings, most of the books originally belonged to deported persons and were stored in the buildings of the former synagogue on Kottbusser Ufer in connection with asset liquidation operations carried out by the tax authorities. From January 1944 onwards the tax office rented out part of the youth synagogue, a separate building, to art and antiques dealer Rudolf Sobczyk. It is likely that the books had already been placed in storage in this building by that time, however, so for the most part they cannot be directly linked to Sobczyk. Immediately after the war ended, reconstruction work began on the youth synagogue, and the items in storage there were initially cleared out by the American military administration. Ernst Wolff was involved in this work as a helper, and with the support of Kreuzberg district office he was able to acquire some of the stored items, including the books expropriated by the tax authorities. Eventually the collection was handed over to the Moses Mendelssohn Akademie by Ernst Wolff’s heirs in 2018, packed in wooden crates: the aim was to undertake a scholarly analysis of the collection and prepare any possible restitutions.

One of the main tasks of the research project was to record and identify the names annotated in the books. It was not possible to identify all of them, nor could all the biographies be traced, and occasionally the attempt to identify individuals raised more questions than answers. One such case is that of the more than 50 books which bear the surname “Freud”. In the early stages of the project, the possibility arose that these books could be copies owned by the Berlin family of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).

The example of “Tomas Freud” demonstrates just how difficult it can be for researchers to identify individuals and reconstruct possible contexts of loss – particularly given that the history of the Freud family is well known and has been relatively well researched. The problem with the name “Tomas” is that it does not appear anywhere in the extensive research that has been done on the Freud family. It does appear several times in the books, however – sometimes in connection with other entries that suggest a direct link to the Berlin Freud family based on dedications and address entries.

The immediate family consisted of the married couple Marie “Mitzi” Freud (1891-1942/43) and Maurice/Moritz Freud (1856-1920), and their four children: Margarete Freud (1887-1984), Lilly Freud (1888-1970), Tom (Martha Gertrud) Freud (1892-1930) and Theo Freud (1904-1923). Tom Freud chose the new name as a youngster and retained it throughout her marriage to publisher Jakob/Jankew Seidmann (1859-1929).

Several dedications in the books include well-known names of family members such as Lilly, Maurice, Theo and Gretchen [Margarete], and there is also a dedication to Tom Freud next to the “Tomas Freud” entry. For example, in a copy of Carmen Sylva’s A Real Queen’s Fairy Book dating from 1901 [Fig.1; B120] there is a Christmas dedication to “Gretchen” next to a note written in pencil saying that the book was given to Tom in exchange for another book, while the name “Tomas Freud” appears on the dust jacket. Another book [Fig.6; B2381], the Jahrbuch des Deutschen Werkbundes [Yearbook of the Deutscher Werkbund] dating from 1913, contains a dedication to “Fräulein Tom Freud” – evidence of the fact that the books preserved in Wolff’s book collection really were from Tom Freud’s library.

In the course of my research into the identity of “Tomas Freud” I spoke to several experts on Tom Freud and the Freud family, but no clear answer emerged to the question: “Who is Tomas Freud?”. Tom Freud was a children’s book author and illustrator whose work was not rediscovered until the 1980s, when it gained publicity through the work of Barbara Murken (see literature below). Freud grew up in Berlin, studied in London and finally lived in Munich-Schwabing until 1920. Together with her husband Jankew Seidmann and Chaim N. Bialik, she founded the publishing house Peregrin, which also published her books. The couple’s daughter Angela was born in 1922.

The financial collapse of the publishing house led to Jankew Seidmann committing suicide in 1929: in despair as a result, Tom Freud took her own life in 1930. Their daughter Angela Aviva (1922-2011) was adopted by Lilly Freud and her husband, the actor Arnold Marlé (1887-1970), and moved with them to Prague in 1933 before eventually emigrating to Palestine in 1938. Having emigrated to Vienna, Tom Freud’s mother was deported from there together with her three sisters in 1942 and murdered in Treblinka. An uncle who also lived in Berlin, Ernst L. Freud (1892-1970), previously emigrated to London with his family in 1933.

The various entries of Tom/Tomas Freud along with the dedications and signatures shown here as examples suggest that the name “Tomas Freud” indeed refers to Tom Freud. The name “Tomas” has not turned up in the family’s correspondence to date, but it is conceivable that Tom Freud used the name “Tomas” for a time, possibly only in private or in communication with her younger brother Theo.

Yet there is another inherent difficulty in the case of “Tomas/Tom” Freud. The early death of Tom Freud and the emigration of the remaining family members raises the question of the context of loss: what happened to Tom Freud’s Berlin estate after 1930, and why were a large number of her books preserved in the Wolff collection?

Dr des. Nora M. Kissling was a research associate/project manager from 2022-2024 in connection with the project on the Ernst Wolff book collection funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and conducted at Moses Mendelssohn Akademie Halberstadt.

Literature:
Barbara Murken: “…die Welt ist so uneben…”. Tom Seidmann-Freud (1892-1930): Leben und Werk einer großen Bilderbuch-Künstlerin. In: Lucifer-Amor. Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse. Issue 33, 2004