Wife of Heinrich Schenker's nephew, Hans Guttmann, thus daughter-in-law of Sophie and Salo Guttmann.

Hans announced his engagement on April 2, 1929, and Sophie sent first details of his fiancée to Heinrich and Jeanette the next day (the letter does not survive). The invitation to the wedding came on April 10, the wedding taking place in Agram (= Zagreb, capital city of Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia) on May 27. Heinrich and Jeanette did not attend. Heinrich’s diary for January 13, 1931 refers to Hans’s “brother-in-law Dr. Schwartz,” leading to the supposition that Edith’s maiden name may be Schwartz.

Hans and Edith visited Vienna on January 25, 1929 and the Schenkers met Edith briefly on the 26th as they were departing for Galtür. In June 1930 Hans and Edith booked a hotel in Galtür for three weeks, during which they spent time with the Schenkers. Her pregnancy was announced in May 1932 and a girl was born on November 3 or 4.

Adverse indications of Edith’s character appear in Heinrich’s diary for July 19, 1933: Sophie “confirms Edith’s innate unchasteness; I [Heinrich] am more convinced than ever that her child is not her husband’s,” though already on November 17, 1930 his diary records Hans writing that a cut in his wages made it difficult for him to “send Edith ‘to a metropolis for a couple of weeks’ – troubles are beginning to brew!” On January 6, 1938, Sophie wrote to Jeanette: where is [Hans] to get money, with a wife who puts on so many airs and graces (solch’ pretensiös)? Just imagine: she was operated on for gallstones; soon after the major operation she traveled to Paris, she stayed in the finest hotel, etc.; from there, she traveled with a family that she knew to Vienna; he, the imbecile, went home alone. She stayed [with] us for three weeks, to make some purchases. Having got home, she went off to the coast, etc. It was a long story . . . So where is the silly fool to get money? It's a scandal!

On November 24, 1938, Sophie again wrote to Jeanette: “[Hans] has an extremely fashion-conscious (sehr mondaine) wife who is very, very extravagant. He has a charming little girl of six, whom, alas, we do not know.”

By 1939, Hans, Edith, and their child (name unknown) were living in Belgrade (capital city of Serbia, part of Yugoslavia). With the end of Heinrich’s diary in January 1935 and the tiny handful of communications with Jeanette in 1938 and 1939, all information about the Guttmann family ceases. In 1941 Belgrade was subjected to heavy bombing by the Lufwaffe, a puppet government was established and the city was declared “free of Jews.” Nothing is known of the family’s fate.

There is no known correspondence between Edith and Heinrich or Jeanette, and no photographs of the Guttmann family in OJ 72/18 include Edith.

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