Marcus [Markus] Schenker
born Wisniowczyk or Lemberg, 1859; died Lemberg, 1879
Documents associated with this person:
The first-born child of Johann and Julia Schenker; Heinrich Schenker's eldest sibling.
Marcus ‒ popular German equivalent of the Hebrew name Mordecai (who in the post-Biblical book of Esther played a heroic role in saving the Jews from annihilation by King Ahasuerus and his adviser, Haman) ‒ was born in 1859. (His birth record gives Lemberg, "building number 225, town center" ‒ but this may be the place of registration, rather than birth, which perhaps took place in Wisniowczyk, where the family lived).
Nothing is now known of his life.
Marcus died in 1879 (town record Lemberg), while Johann and Julia were still alive and was buried in Lemberg cemetery. The evidence for this comes from a diary entry of September 13, 1923, where, in lamenting his mother's burial so far away from the surviving children, he specifies: "My brother [Marcus] in Lemberg, my father in Podhajce, my eldest sister [Rebecka] unknown, and now my mother here [in Waidhofen]." (His grave has not been found.) Two later diary entries recall the burial, but are actually about his other elder brother, Wilhelm, rather than Marcus himself: September 3, 1927: [Wilhelm] no longer remembers the evening on which we left our father in Lemberg after the burial of our eldest brother and, returning to our lodging, shook hands and hugged each other – he doesn't remember our brother, not even his death! January 29, 1930: But of course [Wilhelm] also does not remember that evening when we finally left our parents, who had buried their eldest son, and returned home to our student accommodation. I [...] extended my little hand to him, in order to bond most intimately with the brother who was walking beside me, after we had lost our eldest brother. It came to me from my heart, from the will to love – but even of this moment, too, my brother has no recollection whatever!
Source:
- Gesher Galicia (GG-lviv_births_revised-3747; GG-lviv_deaths_revised-57083)
- Federhofer, Hellmuth, Heinrich Schenker nach Tagebüchern und Briefen ... (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1985), pp. 3‒5
- Shmeruk, Khone, "The Name Mordecai-Markus: Literary Metamorphosis of a Social Ideal," Tarbiz 29 (1960), 76‒98
Contributors
- Ian Bent and Lee Rothfarb