Kohlbach-Bickel family

The Kohlbach-Bickel Family comprised three generations of individuals who lived in Hungary, Germany and Switzerland. The first generation of the family consisted of Bertalan Kohlbach (1866-1941?), rabbi and gymnasium professor, and his wife Helen (Ila, or Ilona) Katscher, the youngest aunt of Rosika Schwimmer. Together they had two children: Emil (1902-?) and Ella (1906-?). Ella married Erich Bickel (1895-?), a Swiss engineer, and they had three children: Werner, Edith (called Mitzi) and Hans.

Bertalan and Helen Kohlbach lived in Temesvár, Hungary (now Timisoara, Romania) and Budapest. Bertalan held a doctorate in Semitic Philology from the Scientific University of Hungary and was rabbi to a wealthy congregation. At some point, however, he was dismissed from this position and resumed his studies with the intent of securing a professorship. He concluded these studies in Berlin in 1896 and eventually attained a position at a gymnasium in Budapest. Throughout his career, Bertalan wrote articles for various papers in Hungary and Germany, often under the Germanized name Berthold Kohlbach.

Bertalan's wife Helen was a member of the Katscher family. Her stepbrother, Leopold Katscher, was an author and noted pacifist, and her niece, Rosika Schwimmer, organized the Ford Peace Expedition during World War I.

Bertalan and Helen's son Emil served as a lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian military during World War I. After the war, he pursued a career in engineering and technology. He married, left Hungary during World War II, and did not return after the war, remaining in Romania. Details of his later life can be found in Ella's letters to Rosika and Franciska Schwimmer in Series I.

Ella Kohlbach, Bertalan's daughter, graduated from the Königliche Technische Hochschule in Berlin in 1917, becoming the first female Hungarian architect. On June 19, 1919, she married Erich Bickel, whom she had met in Berlin. Bickel's father, Wilhelm, had businesses based in Stuttgart and India, and was the Swiss Consul to both Sweden and Germany at different periods. Erich Bickel was born in Berlin while his father was Consul to Germany.

Ella worked as an architect for only a brief period, spending most of her life as a housewife. She and Erich lived in various cities in Germany, and in England during the year 1931-1932. In 1932, they and their children moved to Zurich, where Erich continued his work as an engineer. Beginning in 1936, he became an instructor at the Technische Hochschule. In 1943, Ella's mother Helen Kohlbach escaped from Admiral Horthy's Hungary and joined them in Switzerland.

Ella and Erich's daughter Edith (Mitzi) Bickel and her husband had several children, and moved to Israel in 1947. In Israel, they divorced and Mitzi married a Scandinavian farmer temporarily living there. Together Mitzi and her new husband moved to Norway, where they settled on a farm and had several children. Both the Israeli-born and Norwegian-born children lived with Mitzi.

Related families found in this collection include the Katschers, the Oblaths, and the Schwimmers.

From the guide to the Kohlbach-Bickel family papers, 1860-1952, (The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.)