Samuel Weinberg

In Dolina, had General Store with ready to wear clothes, hats, food on ground floor, family lived on second floor ( which had a special roof to open for family Sukkah to be made inside the house). Had a bank in a second hous, with 3 partners, one book keeper. Assests of ½ million Austrian Krone ( approximately $ US 100,000, equivalent to $ 2,150,000 today. 5 Krone= 2 ½ rubel=$1) up to outbreak of World War I.Income was derived form purchase of bankruptcy sales- i.e, purchase 1000 suits. Sold for $4, 6, 8 . Bookkeeper salary, $15 / month. The entire fortune was wiped out by the outbreak of the War.World War I broke out in 1914. Fled battlefront with family from Austrian front lines with Russia to Vienna. As a refugee, made coats for the Army- sons shredded paper for insulation. Learned the business, went to the officials in charge of ary acquisitions, and took over the coat manufacturing contract. Bought up textiles, sold to refugees. Ran a small bank,with easy lending policies. The business method: send silk to Poland,bring Polsih merchandise to Trieste, bring rice and steel to Vienna. Financed a flour mill. Was generally trusting and lost much to bad borrowers. As his son, Munio quoted it, the word was’ Munio can not make money as fast as Shmuel can lose it.” Among his partners was the father of Professor Moshe Zucker, of the Jewish Theological Seminary, a teacher of Norbert Weinberg, and an elderly gentleman whom Norbert Weinberg sat down next to one day during Sukkoth in a synagogue in the Bronx!With Anschluss, all was lost again. For example, he had 80,000 marks in Fiat stock, lost,$16,000,000 by stock market average growth today. We could have owned part of Chrysler today).

Fled with wife to Italy, then survived the war in Lugano,Switzerland. Biniah died in Switzerland, 1949(?). In 1950’s , commuted between son, Munio, in Canada, and son William, in US. While always observant, when younger, he was a self-educated Maskil( enlightened modernist) who sent his sons to modern schooling, whiel he did all his business dealings in Yiddish. He became very religious in his old age, studied Talmud, left notebooks of Kabbalistic prayers, and went to Chasidic shtiebels to worship.