Birth certificate of Bertold Paul Wiesner

Title:

Birth certificate of Bertold Paul Wiesner

Date:

1924 July 26 Saturday

Description:

Birth certificate of Bertold Paul Wiesner

Translation

Birth Certificate

The undersigned hereby confirms that according to the Birth Registration Procedure of the Jewish Community in Vienna (Floridsdorf), registration no. 74 fol. 108

Berthold Paul Wiesner

On 24th July 1901 – twenty-fourth day of July in the year nineteen hundred and one – was born as firstborn son to Heinrich Wiesner and to Paula nee Kohorn.

In Vienna (crossed out) Marchegg.

Vienna, this 26th day of July 1924.

Register Office of the Jewish Community in Vienna.

Signed . . . . . . Registrar and Commissioner for Oaths

Tax: Fl. 20.000 Stamp: Fl. 2000 Total: Fl. 22.000

Notes

Notes from translator Carole Mullineux:

Pidyon haben: "The pidyon haben (Hebrew: פדיון הבן‎) or redemption of the first-born (if male and not by caesarean) is a mitzvah in Judaism whereby a Jewish firstborn son is "redeemed" by use of silver coins from his birth-state of sanctity, i.e. from being predestined by his firstborn status to serve as a priest."

Judging from the birth certificate I would say that BPW’s parents (Heinrich Wiesner and Paula Kohorn) were indeed observant Jews. They were part of a Jewish community which had established itself in a country which was, after all, not deemed to be ‘theirs’. The diaspora had rendered them landless, nationless. So their religion was their unifying bond, their identity.