Markus Jakob Tieger

It says on his daughter Martha's birth record in Vienne (see sources)

"Mortko Jakob Wieder, israel. Vertreter, wohnhaft II Mumbgasse 1, geboren im Jahre 1869 zu Rakowitz in Galizien, unehel. Sohn der Chasie geb. Wieder hat sich am 17. September 1913 bei dem hiesigen Matrikelamte vor zwei Zeugen als Vater erklärt und die Eintragung seines Namens ausdrücklich verlangt."

Translated as " Mortko Jakob Wieder, Jewish representative (salesman), residing in [Vienna,] second [district], Mumbgasse 1, born 1869 in Rakowitz in Galicia, illegitimate son of Chasie nee Wieder, has declared at this registration office before two witnesses to be the father and has expressly asked for the registration of his name."

Note Most Jewish births in the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the time were deemed illegitimate because of government restrictions for Jews to marry

Notes: Rakowitz is probably Rakowice, part of the Prądnik Czerwony district of Kraków, given that other towns with this name are not in Galicia.

On his son Rudolph's birth certificate he is listed as being from Solotwina which is where there was a large Tieger family see https://www.myheritage.com/site-individuals-219501591/solotvin-fami...

from taped recollections of Martha Tieger Cooper (MC) interviewed by her son Steve (SC)

 Papa was here{USA} in 1907. [SC: Mm-hmm.] Three years he was here. ‘Til 1911 he was here. And he had family here, two sisters and a lot of nephews.

MC:​No. And, uh, just a ticket they sent Papa, ...

But, uh, they still helped, uh, financially, I think, they, we got Packete [packages] already

SC:​So even then you saw American as sort of the golden land?

MC:​Yes, that’s why Papa went in 1907 because . . . .

SC:​And in those, in those days you could just come to America if you wanted?

MC:​Sure.

SC:​There were no immigration quotas or anything like that?

MC:​No. And, uh, just a ticket they sent Papa, [SC-hmm.] which he paid back then. And then when Papa died here--no, he came back, he didn’t die here{USA} he came back, Papa. In 1911. We were supposed to go to America, four kids with Mama and Bernard and I and Henry were supposed to stay with Mama’s brothers in Vienna. Each one [SC: Mm-hmm.] was supposed to take us ‘til Mama comes, and back for the kids, for the rest. He’ll, he will settle here. [SC: Mm-hmm.] But it never came to it. It was Passover. Yesterday.

SC:​That what?

MC:​Um, uh, it, when he sent that, Mama, Mama had told the landlord already she is going, leaving for America. And, uh, but then she said “don’t. I’m not. My, we got a telegram from my husband. I shouldn’t come because he’s coming back.” [SC: Mm-hmm.] He got in an argument with his nephew for whom he worked because, also, at that time, he was a socialist and he wanted to build unions [SC: Mm-hmm.] for the workers. And his nephew found out and he had a big conference with him and told him that he helped him come to help him and not the workers. So came an argument and he quit and couldn’t find another job, even in America. So he came back. After three and a half years.

MCMC:​Ja. My father was doing not too much because my father was very busy with his socialism, you know, and with, uh, with the Social Democrats and with marching and marching and bringing the kids into . . . .

SC:​But he had seven kids; how did he feed you?

MC:​Ja. He was feeding, uh, always did, that’s why [SC: How?] he was going around. He worked with a dentist and, uh, as, as much as I know, and, uh, to get customers. Uh, he was a salesman for a, for a dentist. All the time. He always worked [INDECIPHERABLE] and he worked for a dentist. He took him into that, I heard. Into that same dentist thing. And, uh, he did. And, how did he? Because, uh, he did because Mama was a very capable woman, you know.

SC:​Well how did he pay the rent?

MC:​Well, uh, he did work, he did work with the dentist. And, but we never had much money at all. Not at all. [SC: So that . . . ?] And then when the kids got fourteen and became apprentices and, and, uh, Lehrmädeln [female apprentices], you know. [SC: Mm-hmm.] Whatever they made, Mama [SC: Yeah, OK.] managed already.

.... Mac:​My recollection. I was a, a young kid, a very young girl, very young, went to grade school [SC: Mm-hmm.] yet. And, uh, uh, Mama comes in the door in a, in a blauen lüster [a type of fabric] coat and says “I hear, I hear they say the world is going to burn, the whole world is going to burn. It’s not only Austria,” she said. And I see her coming in the door yet. This story I know very well when my Papa went, and left, and came back, and was afraid to go back. Uh, he was drafted and he was supposed to go three weeks earlier and he didn’t go. And when he came back he was, we, we still don’t know what happened to my Papa. The friend of his who was a, had a, my Papa had also two points, two sterns, you know, two stars. He was a corporal, you know. [SC: Mm-hmm.] And his friend was a bigger, little bigger than he--Hauptmann [sergeant] or whatever he was--Mr., I don’t even remember what his name was. And he told him “come, come here.” He was, he was supposed to go to Poland. He, they drafted him from Poland out, you know. And, and, uh, uh, he, and he wrote us, Mama, then a letter what happened. He was very much afraid because he came three weeks later. And he was afraid they would punish him, the Austrians, you know, because Poland at that time belonged to Austria, you know that. [SC: Keep talking, I’m listening.] And, uh, so he told him, he told, uh, uh, and she, but that is one version which he wrote. And, uh, then a letter came, and he, he took it in his house, you know, in, in his room. He stayed with him. And then a letter came and he said that he found him dead and “I think he killed himself.” Did you hört, hear the story?

SC:​No, tell me.

MC:​We, we have it I think even in one of the documents that he committed suicide as a soldier because he was afraid that, uh, they will punish him because he came three weeks, two or three weeks later when he was drafted. He did not want to go. He was an old man, and they drafted at that time already, 1916 they drafted him, [SC: Mm-hmm.] him and Rudolf, because they drafted sixteen, seventeen years old boys and they drafted forty, thirty-eight years old men at that time because they needed soldiers, the, the war was, we, we lost the war, we were on the edge of losing the war.

SC:​In 1916?

MC:​In 1916. It took still then two years, you know.

SC:​What did you think when you heard the Americans were getting involved?

MC:​No. At that time nobody from us, uh, the kids were all home yet. Papa was here{USA} in 1907. [SC: Mm-hmm.] Three years he was here. ‘Til 1911 he was here. And he had family here, two sisters and a lot of nephews. But, uh, actually in ‘17 when America, uh, added the war, we, we were froh, happy because we thought, uh, it would end. And it did end, you know. It did end in ‘18.

.... that man, wrote to Mama another letter and said to him he thinks, he doesn’t know it for sure, he will find out that he {papa} committed suicide because, “when I came home yesterday,” he said, “I found him, and I found him crawling on the floor near the entrance of the, to the entrance door with his hand up,” he said, “and, um, he, that means he wanted to escape. That would show me,” he said, “that there was an accident. But, uh, it was no gas or anything.” The gas was not open, weisst du. Er, er, er, he wasn’t sure, but he knows it was an unnatural death, you know. [SC: Mm-hmm.] And then he said even “but, I heard that uh, he did it with intention,” he, that the gas was open, I wanted to say. It, it was absolutely a, it was, er, he was afraid that he might have to go to prison because he came, two or three weeks later, er, he came, arrived, and, and why did he? He didn’t know it. He was looking for a job in Hungary when he came back, because there was no work for him when he came back.