Rosenfeld, Valentin Victor

Valentin Victor Rosenfeld was born on 2 March 1886 in Vienna and was a lawyer by profession. He also volunteered for the swimming section of the Jewish sports club Hakoah Vienna. During the 1920s, his wife Eva Rosenfeld established a progressive private school, the Hietzing-Schule, in cooperation with Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlington. After the couple separated, Eva Rosenfeld and their son Victor initially moved to Berlin, where she trained as a psychotherapist. In 1936, they emigrated to Great Britain.

Following the annexation of Austria in March 1938, Valentin Rosenfeld also fled to Great Britain, from where he helped numerous members of Hakoah Vienna to emigrate. The property he left in Vienna was confiscated by the Nazis, who then assigned part of his library to the Austrian National Library (ÖNB) in Vienna. Rosenfeld’s collection of Goethe autographs was first sent to the Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen (Central Depot for Confiscated Collections) then handed over to the ÖNB’s manuscript department. Other parts of his library were spread far and wide by the “Bücherverwertungsstelle” (book collection and distribution centre) in Vienna, an authority set up by the Reich Ministry of Propaganda to distribute books confiscated from Jewish book shops, publishing companies and private libraries.

Three works belonging to Valentin Rosenfeld have been found in the collection of the German National Library in Leipzig, all of which found their way into the collection of the Deutsche Bücherei in January 1939 through the Bücherverwertungsstelle (book collection and distribution centre) in Vienna. Two of the volumes contain Valentin Rosenfeld’s bookplate, while the third – a kind of school magazine from the Hietzing-Schule, a progressive school founded by Eva Rosenfeld, contains a handwritten note with the first name of their son, Victor Rosenfeld. Thanks to the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (Jewish Community of Vienna), it has been possible to establish contact with the family's heirs. The works were returned to the heirs in June 2021.

Further information:

Murray G. Hall und Christina Köstner, „…allerlei für die Nationalbibliothek zu ergattern…“ Eine österreichische Institution in der NS-Zeit, Wien 2006.

Eintrag „Valentin Rosenfeld“, in: Markus G. Patka und Ignaz Hermann Körner (Hrsg.), Lexikon jüdischer Sportler in Wien 1900-1938 (Begleitpublikation zur Ausstellung "100 Jahre Hoppauf Hakoah" des Jüdischen Museums der Stadt Wien vom 4. Juni bis 7. September 2008), Wien 2008, S. 179-180.

Karen Propp, „The Danube Maidens: Hakoah Vienna Girls‘ Swim Team in the 1920s and 1930s“, in: Susanne Helene Betz, Monika Löscher und Pia Schölnberger (Hrsg.), „..mehr als ein Sportverein“. 100 Jahre Hakoah Wien 1909-2009, Innsbruck, Wien u.a. 2009, S. 81-93, hier S. 85-86.

Information about the estate of Eva Rosenfeld in the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna: https://www.freud-museum.at/de/archiv (last retrieved on 23 June 2021)

Eintrag „Valentin Rosenfeld“, in: Wien Geschichte Wiki, zuletzt aktualisiert am 18. März 2021, URL: https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Valentin_Rosenfeld (last retrieved on 23 June 2021).

Monika Löscher, „Valentin Viktor Rosenfeld“, in: Lexikon der österreichischen Provenienzforschung, veröffentlicht am 11. Oktober 2021, URL: https://www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org/rosenfeld-valentin-viktor (last retrieved on 02.06.2023).