You’ve heard of Sigmund Freud, but what about Siegmund Kornmehl? Kornmehl’s butcher shop shared Freud’s famous Vienna address of 19 Berggasse for 44 years. The butcher was forced to sign over his business to the Nazis in 1938, the same year the Freud family escaped from Austria.
Kornmehl’s great-niece, local writer Edie Jarolim, will present “Freud’s Butcher: A Jewish Roots Journey to Vienna” on Sunday, March 24, 1-2 p.m.at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.
In this slide show and talk, Jarolim introduces the Kornmehl family, who thrived in the city during the same period as the Freuds and intersected with them in a variety of ways.
“I gave the talk at the Freud Museum in Vienna last October,” Jarolim recounts, “and it turned into a family reunion, with members coming from Israel, Amsterdam, London, and New York, several of whom I’d never met before. There’s a good chance another family member I have never met is coming to the Tucson talk from Dallas; she already has provided me with a fascinating manuscript about her father, Curtis Allina, who put the heads on Pez candy dispensers — which updates my Vienna talk material.”
Jarolim has a Ph.D. in American literature from New York University and is the author of five books and hundreds of articles on subjects ranging from travel and restaurants to art and dogs. She started the “Freud’s Butcher” blog (www.freuds
butcher.com) in 2012, when she discovered a picture of her great uncle’s shop in the Freud Museum.
The cost of the talk is $5 for members of the J and $7 for nonmembers.
Jarolim also will present “Writing Your Family History: An Introduction” at the J, Wednesdays, March 27-May 1, 1-2:30 p.m. The cost of the class is $65 for members and $75 for nonmembers.
For more information, call 299-3000 or visit www.tucsonjcc.org/calendar.
