Mordko Eltis

About his father, Ernest Eltis wrote: "My father told me very little about his early years. However it seems that a member of the Greif family, then centred in Putilla [in Romania at the time], took an interest in the boy when visiting Kosow and decided that he needed a better education than was available there.

indicates that Mordko Eltis graduated from school in 1906-7

Thus my father moved to Putilla where, he told me he was very happy, "being able to mount any horse he chose in the town" because of his grandfather's position there. He eventually was sent to the Gymnasium in Radautz after which he was accepted as a student at the University of Vienna where he [graduated in law and] obtained a PhD in jurisprudence.

I have most of his certificates which show that in Radautz he was Mortko Eltis. Thus it seems that the name given him by his parents must have been Mordecai [AGAD records actually list him as Mordko]. I am not sure when he decided to become Martin.

What I do know is that he did not have a high opinion of the Hasidic way of life. After graduating he served as an articled clerk with a solicitor in Ceska Lipa, Boehmish Leipa, and then started his own practice in Varnsdorf. probably around 1919 where he met my mother."

See http://www.cnhurmuzachi.ro/download/AnuarZi.pdf for a list of Martin's classmates in 1906-7! In July 2011, Ernest added:

I only discovered that my father was originally caled Mordko after I inherited all his papers when my mother died in 1976. Though I knew that Martin could not have been the name he was given at his birth it had never occurred to me to ask the question. His Doctor of Jurisprudence certificate from the University of Vienna still gives is name as Mordko Eltis and form what you discovered it seems that he did not change his name to Martin (Polish Marcin) until 1919 - around the time he finished his training as a Konzipient to a lawyer in Boemisch Leipa (Ceska Lipa) and started his own practice in Warnsdorf. He and my mother met about then and were married in May 1920. Her father Moritz Schnitzer was a jew who had a velveteen manufacturing business in Warnsdorf and converted to Christianity before my mother was born. I only ever knew my father as Martin Eltis .

My first names on my birth certificate are Ernst Martin. I fully understand why some Jews at that time thought they could shelter from the prevalent antisemitism by converting to Christianity or at least adopt more German forenames. The fact is that my father never liked talking about his earlier years and we only once travelled to Kosov - I was about 12 or 13) to visit his parents. It was their diamond wedding and their 80th birthday year. I only have one photo taken by my mother when everyone at the party had gathered on my grandparents verandah. I think Chaim Eltis was either a timber merchant or had owned a timber business. My father certainly always enjoyed splitting logs when he visited us after we had some trees felled in our large garden and was very good at it.