Son of Emil and Jenny Kornfeld (née Schiff; later Jeanette Schenker); business man.

Erich Kornfeld was the elder son of Emil and Jenny Kornfeld. He had one sibling, Felix. After Jenny's departure from the family home (Dresdenerstraße 8, Aussig: CA 127, September 20, 1910) in September 1910, there was apparently no contact between Erich and his mother, under strict injunction from Emil. Tomáš Kornfeld stated in 1988: This separation was total; all contacts with the family were broken off; [Jenny] was so to speak taboo for her husband Emil, and sons. Emil and Erich never again had any contact with her."

In 1914 Erich joined a regiment (Schenker's diary, August 1, 1914), and Jenny made several appeals for information about his service in World War I, as a result of which she acquired his address (diary, October 7, 1914). Schenker's diary also records that Jeanette heard from her sister Klara Hatschek (née Schiff) on May 9, 1932: "(long letter): all sorts of things – [...] concerning the Weils, Erich, and Felix."

Erich and Felix both worked in their father's company, Klaber & Kornfeld, traders in petroleum, oil, and grease for industrial purposes. After Emil's death in 1937, the two continued the work of the firm, which had however been running into difficulties for some years and ceased trading soon afterward (OJ 14/ 7, [1] and OJ 71/21a, [2]).

Erich married Marianne Öttl (1906‒) on March 21, 1925 in Ústí nad Labem (Aussig) (on their marriage certificate, under religion Marianne gave “evangelical,” Erich “of no religion”), and the couple had two children: Peter, born March 30, 1932, and Charlotte, born July 19, 1944, both in Ústí nad Labem. In a letter of 1934, Rosa Weil gave her elder sister Jeanette the following report (OJ 14/10, [15]): Your sons both have pretty, likeable wives (non-Jews), and each has one splendid child: Erich has Peter, Felix has Tommy. Erich’s wife is an Öttl, who was at one time in school with Lene – not that they are friends, since Lene has, alas, scarcely been in Aussig for years.

A letter from the period 1940‒41 from Jenny (by this time Jeanette Schenker) to his brother Felix, quoted in a letter by grandson Tomáš Kornfeld (OJ 71/12a, [2], June 7, 1988) refers to Erich as having "long been of an age to understand a fateful passion [i.e. that which drew Jenny away from her family] and to come down from his lofty seat of judgment."

As Jews, Erich and Felix were both arrested by the Gestapo on November 10, 1938 and taken to a concentration camp. Erich was released after six weeks on grounds that he was a "casualty and hero of the [first world] war," or as Felix recorded it a "front-line soldier" (OJ 14/7, [1], August 23, 1939). As Germans, Erich, Marianne and the children were driven out of Czechoslovakia after World War II, and settled at Holbeinstrasse 7, Rosenheim-Kahltmühl, in Upper Bavaria. Erich died on or around 1965. Peter was a pharmacist.

Correspondence

No direct correspondence between Heinrich Schenker and Erich is known to have existed. Tomáš Kornfeld quoted (in OJ 71/12a, [2], June 7, 1988) from one postcard written by Erich to Emil while evidently on summer vacation: "Lots and lots of kisses, Papa ‒ greetings from H. Schenker – Greetings, Erich." No date is given for the postcard, and its survival since 1988 is unknown. The postcard does suggest that Heinrich knew Erich and Felix through holidaying with them between 1903 (when they were 8 and 4 respectively) and 1910. An informative letter from Felix Kornfeld to his mother dated August 23, 1939 (OJ 14/7, [1]) reports incidentally on Erich's situation at that time, and the strained relationship between the two siblings.

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