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Sub-clan AX — matriarchal anchor: Julie Porges née Arnstein
(d. Horažďowitz, Monday 1 October 1917 at 6 a.m., "after long severe
suffering, gently passed away").
Funeral Wednesday 3 October 1917 at 2 p.m. from the house of mourning.
(Day-of-week check: 1 October 1917 = Monday ✓; 3 October 1917 = Wednesday ✓.)
Horažďowitz — West Bohemian historic small town
Horažďowitz (Czech: Horažďovice) is a historic small town in West Bohemia,
in the Klatovy district (Plzeň region), ~130 km southwest of Prague. By 1917
it had a population of ~5,000-6,000 with significant German-speaking minority
and a substantial Jewish community with synagogue and cemetery (both still
partially preserved). The town sits on the Otava River at a strategic crossroads
in West Bohemia.
This is the first documented Horažďowitz Porges sub-clan in the corpus,
opening a previously-undocumented West Bohemian small-town location to the
Porges affinity network. It joins
Klatovy / Pilsen Porges as a related
West Bohemian regional cluster.
Arnsteiner / Arnstein surname — Vienna banking dynasty echo
The Arnstein maiden surname carries a famous Habsburg-Jewish historical
echo: Fanny von Arnstein (1758-1818), the celebrated Vienna salonnière
of the Congress of Vienna era, daughter of Daniel Itzig and wife of banker
Nathan von Arnstein. Whether Sub-clan AX's Julie Arnstein is genealogically
connected to the famous Vienna Arnsteiner banking family or whether the
surname is coincidental Bohemian-Jewish convergence requires further
documentary research — the Beethoven-Arnstein-Eskeles social network of
late-Habsburg Vienna is contemporary with the early generations of this
sub-clan's Bohemian-Jewish presence.
Family
Husband: a Mr. Porges, predeceased before 1917 (identity unstated).
Spokesperson: Siegfried Porges (signs "in the name of the mourning
family") — most plausibly Julie's son.
The minimalist faire-part does not enumerate children, daughters-in-law, or
grandchildren — atypical for a 1917 obituary, possibly reflecting the
WWI-era wartime dispersal of the family or a discretion-style notice
convention.
WWI wartime context
October 1917 was the depths of WWI for Cisleithania: the Eleventh Battle
of the Isonzo had just ended in September; the Battle of Caporetto would begin
on 24 October (only 23 days after Julie's death). The Habsburg home front
was strained by food shortages and military mobilization. Julie's "long
severe suffering" is consistent with chronic illness exacerbated by wartime
medical-supply shortages.
Holocaust trajectory
Spokesperson Siegfried Porges and any unnamed siblings would have been the
prime Holocaust deportation cohort. Horažďowitz fell under the Protectorate
after March 1939, and the local Jewish community was largely destroyed in the
Theresienstadt and Sobibor transports of 1942-1944.
- Search holocaust.cz for Porges and Arnstein Horažďovice / Klatovy district transports
- Cross-reference with Klatovy / Pilsen Porges West Bohemian network
Source: obituaries published in Prager Tagblatt (Prague, 1878–1938) and Neue Freie Presse (Vienna, 1864–1939).
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