Adolf-Hermann Schotz

Born in 1885 in Lwów/Lviv, Żółkiewska street 58; the building belonged to his aunt (uncle Hirsch's wife), Scheindela Pordes, born Proch.
A.H. Schotz was a son of the Lwów/Lviv merchant and eastern-galician oil well-owner Markus Schotz. His mother, Gizela (Gitel), was from the Pordes family of Lwów.
A.H. Schotz lived with his wife and daughter on Technicka street 10 (today Techniczna).

Bank director till 1939:

-Director member of the Board of Directors (not Trustees, which was a separate Board), Powszechny Bank Związkowy w Polsce (General Polish Union Bank), Warsaw headquarters, together with Waclaw Fajans (Director General), Ludwik Süsswein and Andrzej Adam Szarski. This bank was the most important private banking group in Poland, and was part of the austrian mega-consortium Creditanstalt-Bankverein, and affiliated with the Banque Belge pour l'Étranger (Brussels), the Böhmische Union Bank (Prague), as well as the swiss Banque Commerciale de Bâle. The bank was also doing business with the London Lazard bank. Beside the main branch in Lwów, other branches were in Bielsko, Cieszyn, Drohobycz, Kraków, Stanisławów, Tarnów.

-Director of the Main Branch of the bank, in Lwów, Jagiellonska street nr 2.

-Member of the Lwów B'nai Brith Loge Leopolis (admitted December 6, 1919).

Adolf-Hermann's brother Zygmunt became vice-director of the Powszechny Bank Kredytowy (General Bank of Credit) in Lwów, and was former director and treasurer of the Lwów B'nai Brith. Another brother, Leo, was banking for Barclay's before WW II, especially in Jerusalem.

Adolf H. Schotz and his wife were visiting Franz Lengh in the U.S.A. in summer 1939, when WW II broke out. They could never come back to Poland. They arrived definitively in the U.S. in november 1941 from Bombay (it is not known anymore why Bombay), and became american citizens after WWII, and lived in Illinois and then Florida.

Antonina Schotz, devastated though she was, still had a son (Franz Lengh) from her ex-husband, but Adolf H. Schotz was devastated by the loss of their daughter Mila, their son-in-law Hermann and their grandson Karolciu in the Holocaust, not to speak about the rest of the family.

Adolf Hermann Schotz figures also on the Pordes family website and family tree.

(Source:

1/ Archive Karola Fliegner-Giroud, including letters by A. H. Schotz to Cyla Fliegner (1947), and letters between Kazimierz Gubrynowicz and former bank general director Wacław Fajans (1947).

2/ Telephone Directory Galicia 1939, p 99, on www.jewisharchive.org.

3/ Księga Adresowa Małopolski, Lwów Stanisławów-Tarnopol, rocznik 1935/36, dział II, p 117, and p 308, on genealogyindexer/directories.

4/ About the bank and A.H. Schotz's functions, between other references:

- Article in PDF, by polish historian Dr. Edyta Majcher-Ociesa (University of Kielce): Wynagrodzenia personelu zarzadzającego przedsiębiorstw w wojewodztwie lwowskim w latach 30 XX wieku w swietle źródel Ministerstwa Skarbu, (Remuneration of company executives in the Lwow province during the 30ies of the 20th century, according to the sources of the Ministry of Treasure), in UR Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, nr 2(7) 2018. Available online at journalofhumanitiesandsocialsciences.com/72018/2.pdf. A.H. Schotz is on p 15 (entry 13) and p 17 (entry 12). The spelling variation Schatz is rightfully to be considered a mere printing mistake coming from one of the sources, while the spelling 'Schotz' appears of course in all the other sources available: there was simply no bank director called A.H. 'Schatz' at that place and at that time. I was eventually in contact with Dr. Ed. Majcher-Ociesa to confirm this.

- Rocznik Polskiego Przemysłu i Handlu 1934, entry no 302 (Warszawa 1934), kindly communicated to me by Dr. Edyta Majcher-Ociesa.

-Codzienna Gazeta Handlowa, Informacijny dziennik polityczno-gospodarczy, piątek 3 czerwca 1932r, nr 124, strona (page)3.

-Codzienna Gazeta Handlowa, sobota 31 sierpnia 1935r, nr 200, strona (page) 5. Available on e-biblioteka Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego (http://ebuw.uw.edu.pl).

- Lwów banki, p 614, PDF document on genealogyindexer.org/view/1939Ptel%20-%200674.pdf

- Księga Adresowa Małopolski, Lwów Stanisławów-Tarnopol, rocznik 1935/36, advertising page, on genealogyindexer/directories.

-1937 Poland B'nai Brith Membership Directory, p 84 on the document, p 86 online (available on http://genealogyindexer.org/view/1937PBB/.

- Article: Members of the Leopolis Humanitarian Society in Lvov (1899-1938): a group portrait, by Łukasz T. Sroka (Pedagogical University, Cracow) online at: file:///C:/Users/Admin/Downloads/8_Sroka_Scripta-Judaica-Cracoviensia_12%20(4).pdf

- Webpage of the Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich Polin, www.sztetl.org, copying the complete organigram of the bank (Presidents, Directors and Trustees) from the Rocznik polskiego przemysłu i handlu, Warszawa 1938, nr 555. To be found at the URL: https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/miejscowosci/w/18-warszawa/103-handel-prze...ązkowy-w-warszawie

- U.S. department of Labor, form 500A, list nr 683, immigration and naturalization services, List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States, sailing from Bombay, 21 november 1941, entry nr 8).