Moritz Rosenstingl and his wife Cäcilia, née Löwinger

“They couldn’t rest beside each other in death, so now at least they have been immortalized together on this Stone of Remembrance.” (The great­ granddaughter Christine Koch in Vienna to Martha Keil, 22.2.2021) Moritz (also spelled Moriz) Rosenstingl was born in Spratzern, which today forms a part of St. Pölten, to Leopold and Fanni, née Goldschmied on 3 May 1865. His family was from Lackenbach, a traditional orthodox community in Western Hungary (today’s Burgenland). Moritz’s wife Cäcilia (also known as Zäzilie or Zilla) was born to Josef Löwinger and Netti, née Löwinger on 22 May 1865. She moved to the area from far away, namely Also Pol (today called Nyzhni Vorota, Ukraine). It is unknown when and where Moritz and Cäcilie got married, but their four children were born either in Spratzern or St. Pölten. Following Jewish tradition, they each received an additional Hebrew name: Alois Elieser, born 1891, studied medicine and practiced dentistry in Vienna. The oldest daughter, Johanna Chana, born 1890, was the only child to survive the Shoah, on account of living in a “protected mixed marriage”. Her sister Ernestine Ester, born 1893, married Mortko Schmatnik in St. Pölten. The couple are also receiving a Stone of Remembrance this year. At least one of the children, Rosa, did not live to see adulthood and lies buried in the old Jewish cemetery, where another four children with the surname Rosenstingl also lie buried. Their given names are unknown. Moritz Rosenstingl seems to have made a good living as a trader of agricultural produce, which is how he could afford to pay for his only son’s medical studies. It is unclear what led to the parents’ impoverishment. In any case, both lived off charity from the Jewish community organization of St. Pölten after the “Anschluss”, which barely sufficed to pay the rent. When they were evicted from their business premises and their apartment in Neugebäudeplatz 9, they were forced to relocate to a wooden barrack in Herzogenburger Straße 10. On 1 July 1938, Cäcilia asked the Jewish community organization in St. Pölten for the couple’s support payments to be increased, citing illness as the cause of their hardship. On 20 July 1938, the couple requested that the community organization accommodate them “in the Jewish retirement home in Vienna, so that we may live out our days amongst Jews and without great privations.” The couple did not end up moving to the retirement home of Vienna’s Jewish community organization in Seegasse 9 in the city’s ninth district and, only six weeks after this application, on 15 August 1938, Moritz Rosenstingl died. According to the death register, he was buried in the Jewish cemetery in St. Pölten, but since there were presumably no funds to erect a gravestone, the burial site is unknown. Since he was also a victim of Nazi persecution, he is now being commemorated on a Stone of Remembrance together with his wife. Cäcilia only left St. Pölten on 3 April 1940, at which point she moved to Vienna’s ninth district. The exact address is unknown. Family memory has it that she lived in the apartment of relatives in Nussdorfer Straße 4, where her daughter Ernestine had also moved with her husband. Shortly thereafter, Cäcilie had to relocate to a collective apartment in Im Werd 7/22 in Vienna’s second district together with her son Alois, his wife Lotte née Beiner, and Lotte’s mother Rosa Ruchel. On 24 September 1942, Cäcilia was deported together with Alois and his wife to Theresienstadt – Rosa had already been deported a month earlier. Alois and Lotte were transferred to Auschwitz on 6 September 1943, where they were murdered sometime between December 1943 and January 1944. Cäcilia endured in Theresienstadt for another year before she died on 25 December 1943.