Showing posts with label Memorial Tribute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memorial Tribute. Show all posts

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Alice Javal Weiller, Victim of Holocaust & Great-Grandmother of Luxembourg Princess

Alice Javal Weiller.
The birth record of Alice Anna Laval, 1869.

NOTE: My sincere gratitude to my dear friend Jakob Regnér, who discovered much of the information about the life story and tragic fate of Alice Javal Weiller.

On 10 October 1869 at Paris, Alice Anna Javal was born as the eldest child of Louis Émile Javal (1839-1907) and Maria-Anna Ellissen (1847-1933). Alice was followed by four younger siblings, the twins Jeanne Félicie Javal (1871–1956; married Paul Louis Weiss) and Jean Félix Javal (1871-killed in action 1915), Louis Adolphe Javal (1873-murdered at Auschwitz 1944) and Mathilde Julie Javal (1876–murdered at Auschwitz 1944). 

Alice's father Émile Javal.

Alice's father Émile Javal was a French doctor, ophthalmologist and politician. Alice was the paternal granddaughter of Léopold Javal (1804-1872) and Augusta de Laemel (1817-1893). Léopold Javal was the founder of an influent family of Alsatian industrialists of Jewish origin. Alice's maternal grandparents were Édouard David Ellissen (1808-1857) and Theodora Ladenburg (1819-1911).

The wedding banns of Alice Javal and Lazare Weiller, 1889.
Alice Javal's husband Lazare Weiller.


On 12 August 1889 in Paris, Alice Anna Javal married Jean Lazare Weiller (1858-1928), the son of an Alsatian Jewish couple Léopold Weiller and Reine Ducasse. The witnesses at the wedding were the politician and writer Eugène Spuller, the poet Sully Prudhomme, and Adolphe Carnot, brother of the President of France. In 1882, Lazare had converted to Roman Catholicism; that same year he married his cousin Marie-Marguerite Jeanne Weiller, who died in 1883 while giving birth to the couple's only child, a son named Jean, who died at the age of two. Alice and Lazare Weiller had four children: the twins Léopold Jean-Pierre Weiller (1890-1970) and Jeanne Marie-Thérèse Weiller (1890-1992; married Marcel Brulé), Georges-André Weiller (1892-1973), and Paul-Louis Weiller (1893-1993; married Alíki Diplarákou). 

 
Wilbur Wright, Lazare Weiller, and Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe, 1908.
Source: Gallica.
Alice Javal Weiller, 1908.
Source: Gallica.
 
In 1908, Alice's husband Lazare had established an 100,000 gold franc award for whoever might complete a one-hour closed circuit flight. The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, traveled to France, where they ended up winning the prize. Like her husband, Alice Weiller had begun to take an interest in the nascent aviation sector, and she met the Wright brothers. On 9 October 1908 at Auvours, Alice Weiller made her first flight in the Wright Model A biplane, which was piloted by Wilbur Wright. 
 
Lazare Weiller, 1920.
 
On 12 August 1928 at Vaud, Switzerland, Lazare Weiller died followed a heart attack brought on the by complications from diabetes. In 1920, Weiller had been elected as Senator from the Bas-Rhin, and he was reelected in 1927. Weiller had campaigned for the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between France and the Holy See, and he was interested in furthering France's ties with Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom.
 
Alice Javal Weiller is granted the Legion of Honour.

In 1932, Alice Weiller became vice-chairman of a committee of the Alsace-Lorraine Society promoting holiday camps for the working classes. Madame Weiller was appointed a chevalier of the Legion of Honour on 23 July 1932 by President Albert Lebrun.
 
Drancy Interment Camp.
 
When World War II broke out, members of the Javal family eventually became targets of Nazi officials after the German armed forces occupied France. Alice Javal Weiller, along with her brother Adolphe Javal and his family, were interred in the Drancy Interment Camp near Paris. On 2 September 1943, Alice Javal Weiller was was put Transport 59, destined for the Auschwitz Birkenau Extermination Camp in Poland. When Alice arrived at Auschwitz on 4 September, she was immediately murdered in the gas chambers. According to Yad Vashem: "On September 2, 1943, a train with 1,000 Jews on board, over a half of whom were French citzens, departed from the Bobigny station to Auschwitz at 10:00. Leutnant Wannenmacher was tasked with supervising the train. Based on the schedule of a transport out of Bobigny in November 1943, the train probably took the following route: Bobigny, Noisy-le-Sec, Epernay, Chalons-sur-Marne, Revigny, Bar-le-Duc, Noveant-sur Moselle (Neuburg), Metz, Saarbruecken, Frankfurt on Main, Dresden, Goerlitz, Liegnitz (Legnica), Neisse (Nysa), Cosel, Katowice (Kattowitz), Auschwitz. Librati further describes the journey: 'On the way four prisoners attempted to escape […] The escapees were promptly captured and killed immediately. As a punishment, the SS took all the other passengers out of the car, ordered them to strip, leave their luggage behind, and board the car again, completely naked with nothing but a blanket to cover them.' When the transport reached Auschwitz on September 4, 232 men and 106 women were selected for labour; the men were tattooed with numbers ranging from 145796–146027 and the women received the numbers 58300–58405. The other 662 deportees were murdered in the gas chambers as soon as they reached the camp."
Yad Vashem's Page of Testimony regarding Alice Javal Weiller.
Source: Yad Vashem.
 
Alice Javal Weiller was seventy-three years-old when she was killed in the Holocaust, solely she was Jewish. The next year, on 7 March 1944, Alice's sister Mathilde Javal, her sister-in-law Mathilde Helbronner Javal, and her niece Isabelle Javal (1919-1944), were moved from the Drancy Internment Camp via Transport 69 and taken to Auschwitz. According to Yad Vashen: "The transport departed from the Paris-Bobigny station on March 7, 1944, with a total of 1,501 deportees, according to the list prepared in the Drancy internment camp." When they were taken to the concentration camp, the three women were murdered. Two months later, on 20 May 1944, Alice's brother Adolphe Javal, who had also been held at Drancy, was put on Transport 74 to Auschwitz. According to Yad Vashem: "The 74th transport left Paris-Bobigny on May 20, 1944. The deportation list, compiled at Drancy, comprises 1,200 names." Transport 74 arrived at the concentration camp on 23 May, and Adolphe Javal was also murdered at Auschwitz. 
 
Alice Weiller remembered on the Shoah Memorial in Paris.

 

May the memory of Alice Anna Javal Weiller and her family be eternal.
 
+++++++
 
Alice Javal Weiller is the great-grandmother of Princess Sibilla of Luxembourg.
 
Alice Anna Javal (Paris 10 October 1869 – Auschwitz 4 September 1943); married Paris 12 August 1889 Jean Lazare Weiller (Sélestat, France 20 July 1858 – Territet, Switzerland 12 August 1928)
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Paul Louis Weiller (Paris  29 September 1893 – Geneva 6 December 1993); married 2ndly (divorced) 31 October 1932 Aliki Diplarakou (Athens 28 August 1912 – 30 October 2002)
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Paul-Annick Weiller (Paris 28 July 1933 – Geneva 2 November 1998); married Rome 26 June 1965 Donna Olimpia Emmanuela Torlonia di Civitella-Cesi (b.Lausanne 27 December 1943)
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Sibilla Sandra Weiller y Torlonia (b.Neuilly-sur-Seine 12 June 1968); married September 1994 Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg (b.Betzdorf, Luxembourg 1 May 1963)

Friday, January 20, 2023

Fürst Ernst von Hohenberg (1944-2023), Grandson of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

 

Fürst Ernst Georg von Hohenberg passed away on 12 January 2023. He was seventy-eight years-old. Ernst was the last surviving grandson of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg. Now, the only surviving grandchild of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie is Fürst Ernst's first cousin, Baroness Sophie von Gudenus (b.1929; née Countess von Nostitz-Rieneck)

Fürst Ernst and Fürstin Marie-Thérèse.

Born on 1 March 1944 at Vienna, Fürst Ernst Georg Elemer Albert Josef Antonius Peregrinus Rupertus Maria von Hohenberg was the second son and child of Fürst Ernst von Hohenberg (1904-1954) and Fürstin Marie-Thérèse (1910-1985; née Wood). Ernst joined an older brother, Fürst Franz Ferdinand (1937-1978; married Heide Zechling). 

Franz Ferdinand and Sophie with their three children: Sophie, Maximilian, and Ernst.

The paternal grandparents of Ernst were Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (1863-1914) and Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg (1868-1914; née Countess Chotek von Chotkow und Wognin). As is well known, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, then heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Sophie on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo was the catalyst that led to World War I. The maternal grandparents of Ernst were Captain George Jervis Wood (1887-1958) and Baroness Rosa Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény (1888-1971).

On 31 August 1973 at Radmer, Fürst Ernst von Hohenberg married Patricia Annette Caesar (b.1950), the daughter of Arthur M. Caesar and Selma Anne Maguire. Ernst and Patricia celebrated their religious marriage on 2 September 1973. The next year, the couple welcome the birth of their only child, Fürstin Eva Anne Marie von Hohenberg, on 1 December 1974 at Graz. Fürst Ernst and Fürstin Patricia divorced in 1999. Their daughter Furstin Eva married Alessandro Geromella in 2005; the pair divorced in 2008. Eva is now happily engaged to Peter Eduard Meier. In 2007, Fürst Ernst remarried to Margareta Anna Ndisi (b.1959). 

Since 1976 until his passing, Fürst Ernst resided in the hunting castle at Radmer in Styria, Austria.



On 28 January 2023, a Requiem Mass for Fürst Ernst von Hohenberg will be held at the Pfarrkirche Artstetten. His burial will be in the vault of Schloss Artstetten on 28 January 2023.

May He Rest In Peace.

Monday, March 14, 2022

the passing of dowager countess of

The Passing of the Dowager Countess of Paris (1938-2022)

 
Henri and Micaëla

HRH Princess Micaëla d'Orléans, Dowager Countess of Paris, died on Sunday, 13 March, in the French capital. She was eighty-three years-old.

The Dowager Countess of Paris was born doña Micaëla Ana María Cousiño y Quiñones de León on 30 April 1938 at Vichy, France. Her parents were Luis Maximiliano Cousiño y Sébire (1895-1970) and his wife doña Antonia Quiñones de Léon y Bañuelos (1895-1982), 4th Marquesa of San Carlos and Grandee of Spain; the couple had married at Paris on 9 June 1922. The Marquesa of San Carlos and her husband were divorced in the late 1940s after having had seven children. Nearly fifteen years separated their first child, don Juan Luis (1923-2017), from their last, doña Micaëla (b.1938).

doña Antonia Quiñones de Léon y Bañuelos, IV marquesa de San Carlos, in 1929

Doña Micaëla Cousiño y Quiñones de León married firstly in a civil ceremony on 12 June 1961 at Saint-Cloud to Jean Marie Maurice Bœuf (b.1934). The couple had one son, Alexis Francis-Bœuf (b.1964). The marriage of Micaëla and Jean ended in divorce in 1966.

Alexis Francis-Bœf with his stepfather and mother, the Count and Countess of Paris, in 2017

Micaëla began her career on the radio in France. Her first husband Jean Bœuf was an employee of Télévision Française. Later, Micaëla worked for an advertising group both in Madrid and in Paris. From 1978 until May 1981, she was responsible for the communications of the minister and the senior directors at the cabinet of minister Raymond Barre.
 
The Count of Clermont and the Princess of Joinville

On 21 January 1973, Micaëla Cousiño met Prince Henri d'Orléans, Count of Clermont, the eldest son of the Count and Countess of Paris. Henri had been married since 1957 to Duchess Marie-Thérèse of Württemberg and they had five children; however, the couple's union had deteriorated over time. When Henri and Micaëla encountered one another, it was love at first sight. Their devotion to one another was to stand the test of adversity and time. 
 
Henri and Micaëla
 
In 1984, the Count of Clermont and his wife Marie-Thérèse, who was granted the title Duchess of Montpensier by her father-in-law, were civilly divorced. Prince Henri d'Orléans and doña Micaëla Cousiño y Quiñones de León contracted a civil marriage at Bordeaux on 31 October 1984; this action greatly displeased the groom's father, who sought to disinherit his son for a number of years. However, the Count of Paris and the Count of Clermont were reconciled in 1991; at this time, the Count of Paris granted his daughter-in-law Micaëla the title Princess of Joinville.  
 
The civil marriage of Prince Henri d'Orléans and doña Micaëla Cousiño in 1984
 
Point de Vue covers the reconciliation of father and son in 1991
 
In 1999, the Count of Paris died and was succeeded by his eldest son Henri as Head of House France. Henri assumed the title Count of Paris; however, Micaëla chose to remain titled as Princess of Joinville from 1999 until 2003, when her mother-in-law passed away. The "new" Count of Paris and his first wife the Duchess of Montpensier received a religious annulment in 2008 from the Vatican. In light of this, Henri and Micaëla, the Count and Countess of Paris, were joined in a Roman Catholic ceremony on 26 September 2009 at Biarritz.
 
The Count and Countess of Paris after their religious wedding in 2009
Photograph (c) Alamy
 

The Count and Countess of Paris with Empress Farah of Iran

After thirty-four years of marriage to his second wife, the Count of Paris died on 21 January 2019 in Paris. His death came exactly forty-six years after he crossed paths with the woman who was to be his partner for the rest of his life. The Countess of Paris was unable to attend the funeral of her husband due to poor health.
 
The Dowager Countess of Paris

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