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small Jewish prayer room in Freiberg not far from the Freuds. (Original information as personal communication from Sajner to Swales.)
53. Suggested to me by Dr. Henry Elkin (1980), and confirmed by others knowledgeable about Eastern European Jewry in the mid-19th century. 54. Rainey (1975, p. 35) also makes this general point; Falk (1978, pp. 377-378, 385) has similarly noted some of the Christian significance of the nanny. 55. The church was called Mariae Geburt (“The Nativity of Our Lady”). See E. Freud, Freud, & Grubrich-Simitis (1978, p. 49). It had a gothic Madonna. See Muk & Samánková et al. (1985, p. 443). 56. Swales (personal communication, 1983) has visited Freiberg and has seen the statue; I have also seen his photo of it. There is also a photo of the statue in Sajner (1968, facing p. 168). 57. Zezula (personal communication, 1981); also confirmed by Professors Nemec and Rutar. See also Nemec (1981, e.g., p. 127), for the old Marian column, Old Town Square, Prague. 58. I was informed of the Czech popularity of St. Anne by Professor Zezula (personal communication, 1981); see also Nemec (1981). For a brief history of the Catholic saints of Moravia see Rutar (1983). “Anna” and “Maria” then, even more than now, were notably Catholic names. (The fact that Emanuel Freud’s wife was called Maria and her children were named John and Pauline, plus the fact that Sigmund’s sister was named Anna, all suggest a strong assimilative current in the Jakob Freud family, at least in the 1850s.) 59. Jones (1957, pp. 349-350). 60. This point is very clearly made by Drobin (1978, p. 48). 61. Jones’s denial of the nanny is so peculiar that it means he is distinctly threatened by the association of his master with a religiously oriented mother-figure. Other evidence for this is provided in later sections. 62. Jones (1953, p. 13). 63. Sajner (1968, p. 173); Schur (1972, p. 21). 64. Freud’s gift with language and his familiarity with different languages are attested to by all of his biographers. 65. For Freud’s memory of the Czech language, see Jones (1953, p. 7); S. Freud (1900, S.E., 4, p. 196). 66. A visit by Freud to Freiberg in his teens is described in his Screen Memories (S. Freud, 1899a, S.E., 3, pp. 303-322). At that time he visited the Fluss family, who were German-speaking Jews. 67. Swales (1983d, p. 13). See also Sajner (1968); Gicklhorn (1969); Krüll (1979, pp. 167-176). 68. Freud’s sister Anna wrote as an old woman that the family left Freiberg six weeks after her birth on December 31, 1858 (Bernays, ca. 1935). This is obviously incorrect, since documents attest to the Freuds’ being in Freiberg 12 weeks after her birth (i.e., March 23). It is likely that her memory was a corruption of “six months,” which would mean that they left at the end of May or early June 1859. Swales (1983d, p. 13) notes the discrepancy and thinks it is possible that “six weeks” is a corruption of “six months.” Jones (1953, p. 15, note b) also comments on the mistaken dates of Freud’s sister in her memoirs. |