Son of Jeanette Schenker (née Schiff; prev. Jenny Kornfeld); businessman.

Felix was the younger son of Emil Kornfeld and his wife Jenny (later to be Jeanette Schenker), his elder brother being Erich. Felix was born and brought up in Aussig (Ústí nad Labem). Like his brother, after his schooling he worked in his father's company, Klaber & Kornfeld, traders in petroleum, oil and grease. When Emil died in 1937, Erich and Felix continued the company until it ceased trading soon afterward. Felix suffered from a "lame foot" (Fusslähmung), possibly from early in life.

Felix married Elsa Wobornik (1906‒) on March 7, 1931, the couple had a son, Tomáš Kornfeld, born August 7, 1932. Felix and his brother Erich ‒ neither of them observant Jews ‒ were arrested by the Gestapo on November 10, 1938 and taken to a concentration camp. Whereas Erich was released six weeks later, Felix remained until May 31, 1939, on which date he was released conditional upon emigration. At about this time, "out of fear, and compelled by those around her," Elsa (who was not Jewish) divorced him. Felix wrote to his mother on August 23, 1939 (OJ 14/7, [1]), conveying this information and reporting his general state of mind, and asking for her help in finding a way to emigrate. She replied to him on September 1 and October 12, 1939, the contents of both of which are unknown. He was later re-arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Theresienstadt, where he met his mother again for the first and only time since 1910, before he was transferred to Auschwitz, where he perished in September 1944 (Jeanette remained in Theresienstadt, dying in January 1945).

Felix Kornfeld and Heinrich Schenker

Heinrich Schenker had been a close friend of Emil Kornfeld since the early 1890s, apparently visiting the Kornfeld family in Aussig, where he got to know Erich and Felix, as well as holidaying in the Alps with Emil and Jenny up to 1910, in which year Jenny left Emil and her sons to be permanently with Heinrich in Vienna. Thereafter, all contact between Jenny and the family was broken off by Emil, and her name was "taboo" to the two sons (OJ 71/21a, [2]). Schenker's diary records that Jeanette heard from her sister Klara Hatschek (née Schiff) on May 9, 1932: "(long letter): all sorts of things – [...] concerning the Weils, Erich, and Felix," but no details are given there.

Correspondence

One letter from Felix to Jeanette survives as OJ 14/7, [1] (1939). Summer vacation postcards to Felix from Schenker alone, or jointly with Emil, or Jenny, or Erich, from the Tyrol in the period 1903-10, existed in 1988 in the possession of his son, Tomáš Kornfeld; letters also existed at that time from Jenny to Felix, written on Felix's birthday in 1912 and 1917, at least the first of which went unanswered, and further letters in 1940-41 (OJ 71/21a, [2]).

Sources

Contributor