Under Hermann, both the family life of the Steiners and the bookstore flourished in an unprecedented way: The bookstore did so well that Hermann was able to acquire property at 22 Venturgasse, which became both the new building of the bookstore and the family residence for another two generations.Hermann joined the German and the Hungarian booksellers’ associations. He had 10 children with his wife, Selma, all of whom received an excellent education. His children became lawyers, doctors, nurses and – two of them – booksellers.David was born in 1926 to Wilhelm Steiner, one of the two children who went into the bookseller business (the other one was his uncle Max). He still remembers his bar mitzva, held at the family residence. This was after the visit of Faust, when it was clear to everyone that there would be a Pressburg without the Steiner bookstore.Of the 10 siblings and their offspring, almost none survived the Holocaust. Wilhelm and David, however, survived in hiding. All that was left of the Steiner family in 1945 was a bookseller, his 19-year-old son and a room filled with books, remnants of a glorious past.People of the Book(s)Wilhelm died in Pressburg in November 1948. He had planned to immigrate to Israel and had lived to hear of the foundation of the Jewish state. His son did make aliya, taking the inventory with him. “I expected most of these books to be destroyed by the Nazis, and was hoping to make a living selling them as rarities.”Life, however, had different plans for David: In Israel, he did not sell books. As it turned out, nobody was interested in German and Czech books in the newly founded state. David founded a family, had children, grandchildren and, recently, a great-grandchild.“My family history,” he recalls, “is, in a way, the story of the Jewish people: My great-grandfather Sigmund Steiner went his way with nothing but a tefillin bag and his faith.Then, the family – like the Jewish people – flourished, had economic and cultural success and thought it was fully integrated in European society. Until the Nazis showed that this had all been an illusion: A Jew will always be a Jew. And so, 100 years after the first Sigmund Steiner went his way with nothing but a tefillin bag, the second Sigmund Steiner, myself, went his way, leaving the only place he had known as home, with a tefillin bag – and some books.”Now, almost another 100 years after the last Steiner left Pressburg (to be sure, one cousin still lives there), Israel has fulfilled the promise Moravia and Bratislava disappointed: It has become a permanent home for the Jewish people in general, and for four Steiner generations in particular.The story of the Steiner family is a story of acquired homes and lost homes, of acquired fortunes and lost fortunes, of acquired status and lost status. And it is a story of books, of the love of books and of the vast wisdom only books entail. Now, David Sigmund Steiner is selling the last remnants of his bookstore. His children and grandchildren never learned German or Slovakian. However, they do – like the early Steiners – keep the Jewish faith, according to the principles of Torah im derech eretz. And so, while the Steiners are not the people of the books anymore, they are very much a part of the People of the Book.
Requiem for a (people of the) bookstore
The story of a family from Bratislava whose bookstore was the cultural center of the town for more than a century.
Under Hermann, both the family life of the Steiners and the bookstore flourished in an unprecedented way: The bookstore did so well that Hermann was able to acquire property at 22 Venturgasse, which became both the new building of the bookstore and the family residence for another two generations.Hermann joined the German and the Hungarian booksellers’ associations. He had 10 children with his wife, Selma, all of whom received an excellent education. His children became lawyers, doctors, nurses and – two of them – booksellers.David was born in 1926 to Wilhelm Steiner, one of the two children who went into the bookseller business (the other one was his uncle Max). He still remembers his bar mitzva, held at the family residence. This was after the visit of Faust, when it was clear to everyone that there would be a Pressburg without the Steiner bookstore.Of the 10 siblings and their offspring, almost none survived the Holocaust. Wilhelm and David, however, survived in hiding. All that was left of the Steiner family in 1945 was a bookseller, his 19-year-old son and a room filled with books, remnants of a glorious past.People of the Book(s)Wilhelm died in Pressburg in November 1948. He had planned to immigrate to Israel and had lived to hear of the foundation of the Jewish state. His son did make aliya, taking the inventory with him. “I expected most of these books to be destroyed by the Nazis, and was hoping to make a living selling them as rarities.”Life, however, had different plans for David: In Israel, he did not sell books. As it turned out, nobody was interested in German and Czech books in the newly founded state. David founded a family, had children, grandchildren and, recently, a great-grandchild.“My family history,” he recalls, “is, in a way, the story of the Jewish people: My great-grandfather Sigmund Steiner went his way with nothing but a tefillin bag and his faith.Then, the family – like the Jewish people – flourished, had economic and cultural success and thought it was fully integrated in European society. Until the Nazis showed that this had all been an illusion: A Jew will always be a Jew. And so, 100 years after the first Sigmund Steiner went his way with nothing but a tefillin bag, the second Sigmund Steiner, myself, went his way, leaving the only place he had known as home, with a tefillin bag – and some books.”Now, almost another 100 years after the last Steiner left Pressburg (to be sure, one cousin still lives there), Israel has fulfilled the promise Moravia and Bratislava disappointed: It has become a permanent home for the Jewish people in general, and for four Steiner generations in particular.The story of the Steiner family is a story of acquired homes and lost homes, of acquired fortunes and lost fortunes, of acquired status and lost status. And it is a story of books, of the love of books and of the vast wisdom only books entail. Now, David Sigmund Steiner is selling the last remnants of his bookstore. His children and grandchildren never learned German or Slovakian. However, they do – like the early Steiners – keep the Jewish faith, according to the principles of Torah im derech eretz. And so, while the Steiners are not the people of the books anymore, they are very much a part of the People of the Book.