---
title: "Freud family"
chunk: 1/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud_family"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:05:31.798248+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The family of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, lived in Austria and Germany until the 1930s before emigrating to England, Canada, and the United States. Several of Freud's descendants and relatives have become well known in different fields.

== Freud's parents and siblings ==
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was born to Jewish Galician parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg in Mähren, in what then was the Austrian Empire (now called Příbor and in the Czech Republic). He was the eldest child of Jacob Freud (1815–1896), a wool merchant, and his third wife, Amalia Nathansohn (1835–1930). Jacob Freud was born in Tysmenitz, then part of the Austrian Partition of Poland called the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (now called Tysmenytsia and in Ukraine), the eldest child of Schlomo and Peppi (Pessel), née Hoffmann, Freud. His two brothers, Abae (c. 1815–c. 1885) and Josef (1825–1897), had difficulties that concerned the family, the former because of his mentally incapacitated children, the latter because his business dealings came under criminal investigation.
Jacob Freud had two surviving children from his first marriage to Sally Kanner (1829–1852):

Emanuel (1832–1914)
Philipp (1836–1911)
Jacob's second marriage (1852–1855) to Rebecca (family of origin uncertain) was childless.
Amalia Freud was the daughter of Jacob Nathansohn (1805–1865), great-grandson of Rabbi Aryeh Leib Bernstein, and Sara Wilenz born in Brody, then also part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and now also part of Ukraine. They later moved to Vienna. Her brother Hermann (1822–1895), who was a stockbroker in Odessa in the Russian Empire, was Freud's favourite uncle. She had three other brothers: Nathan (b. c.1825), Adolf (c.1830–1862) and Julius (1857–1858). Jacob and Amalia Freud had eight children:

Sigmund (birth name Sigismund Schlomo; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939)
Julius (October 1857 – 15 April 1858)
Anna (31 December 1858 – 11 March 1955)
Regina Debora (nickname Rosa; 21 March 1860 – 1942)
Marie (nickname Mitzi; 22 March 1861 – 1942)
Esther Adolfine (nickname Dolfi; 23 July 1862 – 1942)
Pauline Regine (nickname Pauli; 3 May 1864 – 1943)
Alexander Gotthold Ephraim (19 April 1866 – 23 April 1943)
Julius Freud died in infancy.
Anna married Eli Bernays (1860–1921), the elder brother of Sigmund's wife Martha. There were four daughters: Judith (1885–1977), Lucy (1886–1980), Hella (1893–1994), Martha (1894–1979) and one son, Edward (1891–1995). In 1892 the family moved to the United States where Edward Bernays became a major influence in modern public relations. He married Doris E. Fleischman (1891–1980) who became known as a prominent feminist activist. Their daughters are Doris Bernays Held (b. 1929), a psychotherapist who married Richard Held (1922–2016) a neuroscientist, and Anne Bernays (b. 1930) a writer and editor, as was her husband, Justin Kaplan (1925–2014).
Rosa (Regina Deborah Graf-Freud) married a lawyer, Heinrich Graf (1852–1908). Their son, Hermann (1897–1917) was killed in the First World War; their daughter, Cäcilie (1899–1922), committed suicide after an unhappy love affair. In March or early April 1943 Rosa was transported from Vienna to the Treblinka extermination camp where she was murdered.
Mitzi (Marie Freud) married her cousin Moritz Freud (1857–1922). There were three daughters: Margarethe (1887–1981), Lily (1888–1970), Martha (1892–1930) and one son, Theodor (1904–1923) who died in a drowning accident. Martha, who was known as Tom, worked as a children's book illustrator. After the suicide of her husband, Jakob Seidmann, a journalist, she took her own life. Their daughter, Angela, was sent to live with relatives in Haifa.  Lily became an actress and in 1917 married the actor Arnold Marlé. They subsequently adopted Angela. In July 1942 Mitzi was transported from Vienna to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The following September she was transported to the Maly Trostinets extermination camp, near Minsk, where she was murdered.
Dolfi (Esther Adolfine Freud) did not marry and remained in the family home to care for her parents. In July 1942 Dolfi was transported from Vienna to the Theresienstadt concentration camp where she died of malnutrition on 29 September 1942.
Pauli (Pauline Regine Winternitz-Freud) married Valentine Winternitz (1859–1900) and emigrated to the United States where their daughter Rose Beatrice (1896–1969) was born. After the death of her husband she and her daughter returned to Europe. Rose (known as Rosi) married Ernst Waldinger, a poet, in 1923. They moved to New York City after the war where a daughter, Ruth, was born. In July 1942 Pauli was transported from Vienna to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The following September she was transported to the Maly Trostinets extermination camp, near Minsk, where she was murdered.
Alexander Freud married Sophie Sabine Schreiber (1878–1970). They fled the Nazi regime in Austria with their son, Harry (1909–1968), and emigrated to Canada. Harry subsequently emigrated to the United States where he married Leli Margaret Horn.
Both Freud's half-brothers emigrated to Manchester, England, shortly before the rest of the Freud family moved to Vienna in 1860.
Emanuel Freud married Maria Rokachova (1836–1923) in Freiberg where their first three surviving children were born: Johann known as John (1855-1936), who was the "inseparable playmate" of Freud's early childhood, Pauline (1856–1944) and Bertha (1859-1940). Their other children were born in Manchester: Matilda (1862–1868), Harriet (1865–1868), Henrietta (1866 infant death) and Soloman (1870–1945, known as Sam). None of the children married. Research into the life of John has provided evidence that he moved to London and formed a partnership with Annie Newport (1868-1934) and had one child, Ethel Rose (1892-1959).
Philipp Freud married Bloomah Frankel (1838-1925). There were two children: Pauline (1873–1951) who married Fritz Hartwig (1881–1958); and Morris (1876-1938. Died in Port Elizabeth, South Africa). The death of the childless Pauline in 1951 marked the end of the Manchester Freuds.
Freud visited his half-brothers and their families in England twice, in 1875 while still a student, and again in 1908. He kept in touch through a regular correspondence with Sam Freud. They would eventually meet again in London in 1938.

== Persecution and emigration ==