Illich family activities in 1937
There is no burn-in time code on the DVD (user copy).
Ellen (Maexie) Regenstreif Illich (1901-1965) came from a family of converted Sephardic Jews who had settled in Germany. Her industrialist father, Fritz (Pucki) Regenstreif (1868-1941), had a lumber business in Bosnia where he owned a sawmill at Zavidovic and an Art Nouveau villa on the outskirts of Vienna in Pötzleinsdorf built by Friedrich Ohmann. Piero Ilic (1890-1942) came from a landed family in Dalmatia, Yugoslavia with property in Split and extensive wine and olive oil producing estates on the island of Brac. Ellen and Piero married in 1925 and established a home in Split. There was a resurgence of anti-foreign and anti-Jewish sentiment in Yugoslavia, so in 1932, Ellen returned to her father's villa in Vienna with their three children: Ivan (1926-2002), Michael (Micha) (b. 1928), and Alexander (Sascha) (1928-2009). Piero died of natural causes in Split in July 1942 (the boys never saw their father after they moved to Vienna). After the death of Fritz Regenstreif on May 8, 1941, the splendid home was taken by the Nazis in a forced sale, and Maexie moved into a pension in Vienna with the children. In Nazi Austria, Maexie was considered an ethnic Jew although she was a baptized Christian, and the children were classified as half-Jewish. In 1942, they made their way to Florence by way of Split, where they lived for three months. Later, Maexie made her way to the United States, where she died in 1965.
Family activities in the year 1937. Introduced with German titles throughout, some are comical. Grandpa Fritz and the Illich boys are in costume performing a play for Three Kings Day in January 1937. Train. Ivan and Ellen (Maexie) walk along the mountain path. Good CUs of Maexie and Ivan with two photographic cameras. Ice sport (curling?). Three boys walking in the snow under"Kurhaus Semmerin" sign. Fritz plays and hikes with his grandsons at the resort in the snow. Views of the mountainside from an open carriage ride, close shots of Ivan, Sascha, and Micha. Visiting the Prater amusement park in Vienna. Carousel with live horses. Boys in schoolboy caps. Filling the car with gasoline, snacking at a café, driving on a mountain road, visiting Dollfuss Church, changing a tire, and resting in a small town. Celebration of 25 years of the villa at Poetzleinsdorf. The twins pretend to be a couple, arriving in an open car with their driver Franz Leithner. The children perform, plant a new tree, and the driver and other staff gather around. Ellen (Maexie) and the children on a city street, enjoying a feast with their grandfather, exiting the home with their luggage, visiting Maria Schutz chapel near Semmerung, and driving along a road (trees budding). Corpus Christi religious procession at the Poetz villa. Crowds parade and gather at the terrace. 01:49:10 CU, boys in the car, then at the square in front of the Piarist Maria Treu church for a ceremony with Bishop Franz Kamprath. Parading, posing for a photograph, driving to an outdoor celebration where the boys eat on a terrace and play with balloons with their godfather and uncle Paul (Ellen's brother). The family continues on to visit Leopoldsberg, where there is another outdoor festival. In September, the boys and their grandfather Fritz visit Semmering, Maria Zell, the Rosegger home, a town square, factories, and the Alps. The boys enjoy a beverage at the top of a mountain. View of the boys on the ground from a chairlift. A stop at Hotel Laufenstein and the bookstore. The boys play with animals and other children on a farm.