---
title: "Freud family"
chunk: 2/4
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 systematic persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany and the ensuing Holocaust had a profound effect on the family. Four of Freud's five sisters were murdered in concentration camps: in 1942 Mitzi Freud (eighty-one) and Paula Winternitz (seventy-eight) were transported to Theresienstadt and taken from there to the Maly Trostinets extermination camp, near Minsk, where they were murdered. In 1943 Dolfi Freud died in Theresienstadt of internal bleeding, probably due to advanced starvation and Rosa Graf (eighty-two) was deported to Treblinka, where she was murdered. Freud's brother, Alexander, escaped with his family to Switzerland shortly before the Anschluss and they subsequently emigrated to Canada. Freud's sons Oliver, a civil engineer, and Ernst Ludwig, an architect, lived and worked in Berlin until Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 after which they fled with their families to France and England respectively. Oliver Freud and his wife later emigrated to the United States. Their daughter Eva Freud had remained in France and died there of an infection contracted during an abortion.
Freud and his remaining family left Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938 after Ernest Jones, the then President of the International Psychoanalytic Association, secured immigration permits for them to move to Britain.  Permits were also secured for Freud's housekeeper, Paula Fichtl, his doctor, Max Schur and his family, as well as a number of Freud's colleagues and their families. Freud's grandson, Ernst Halberstadt, was the first to leave Vienna on 28 March, initially for Paris, before going on to London where after the war he would adopt the name Ernest Freud and train as a psychoanalyst. Next to leave for Paris were Ernestine, Sophie and Walter Freud, the wife and children of Freud's eldest son, Martin. Walter went on to join his father in London. His mother and sister remained in France and subsequently emigrated to the United States. His maternal grandmother, Ida Drucker, was deported from Biarritz in 1942 and murdered in Auschwitz.
Freud's sister-in-law, Minna Bernays, was the first to leave for London early in May 1938. She was followed by his son, Martin, on 14 May and then by his daughter Mathilde and her husband, Robert Hollitscher, on 24 May. Freud, his wife and daughter, Anna, left Vienna on 4 June on the Orient Express, accompanied by their housekeeper Paula Fichtl and Dr Josephine Stross. Stross was a late replacement as medical supervisor for Freud, summoned after his physician Max Schur became incapacitated by appendicitis. They arrived in Paris the following day, staying at the home of Marie Bonaparte before boarding the night train to London via Calais. Their arrival at Victoria Station on the morning of 6 June attracted widespread press coverage. Freud's architect son, Ernst, arranged temporary accommodation for the Freuds in north London at 39 Elsworthy Road before the new family home was established in Hampstead at 20 Maresfield Gardens in September 1938.  Ernst designed modifications of the building including the installation of an electric lift. The study and library areas were arranged to create the atmosphere and visual impression of Freud's Vienna consulting rooms.

== The war years ==