Hugo Fantl (1873-1949) was born in Volyně, Czech Republic (then: Wolin, Bohemia), the son of Marcus Fantl and Marie née Fischl. Hugo's older brothers, Alfred and Samuel, immigrated to America around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. Hugo and his younger brother, Ottokar, worked in their father’s textile company Galanterie-, Kurz- und Wirkwaren en gros in Reichenberg, Bohemia (today Liberec, Czech Republic), which they eventually took over.
Hugo's first wife, Olga née Meisel died at age 38, and he then got married to Olga née Kraus. Hugo's son from his first marriage, Paul Fantl, immigrated to the United States in 1934. When Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, Hugo and Ottokar Fantl were forced to sell their company under duress; Hugo, his wife Olga and their daughter Gertrude (Trude) immigrated to the U.S. the very same year. Ottokar eventually was sent to the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp and then to Treblinka, where he perished.
From the guide to the Hugo Fantl Collection, 1915-1975, (Leo Baeck Institute)
